


i'm not waiting but i'm willing if you call me up

by niallhoranbitches



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, M/M, Slow Burn, Wrong Number AU, and loads of swearing probably, just two nerds in love, mention of a panic attack, uni/coffee shop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-20 22:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15543993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niallhoranbitches/pseuds/niallhoranbitches
Summary: There was a short silence on the line and Zayn thought that it was his only chance. Who might had known how long that guy’s next speech could be.“I’m sorry, but… You’ve probably called the wrong number,” Zayn said.As a response, Zayn had gotten another pause.“You don’t sound like Harry,” the voice finally said, confused.Zayn chuckled, “That might be because I’m not a Harry. You called the wrong guy.”"Fuck. I’m going to die here,” the unknown caller whined, sounding quite miserable.





	i'm not waiting but i'm willing if you call me up

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> I'm so incredibely excited about being a part of The 1D Collab, y'all have no idea! It's been a long and quite a wild journey but it's finally over and I can share with you this piece. I've been abandoning this fic and this idea a few times already since I came up with it a few years back. BUT LOOK! I've finally made it! I'm so happy it's done and that I can share it with u guys. I really hope you'd enjoy it ^^
> 
> I'm trying to cut this short but I just want to say huuuuuuuge thank you to my precious mum **Jules** who ~~forcefully made me~~ convinced me to take part in the whole nanowrimo thingy and let that fic happen and who always motivates me to write even if i don't want to  
>  another thanks to **venice** for creating the art to this fic because having a piece of art created for something you wrote is like... INSANE  
>  and last but not least thank you to **the whole mod squad** for running this collab, always being so lovely and helpful and not losing their patience to my perpetually-belated ass. I love you guys so much.
> 
> the fic wasn't thoroughly beta'd so all the mistakes and typos are my fault and i'm really sorry for that

Carmen was plotting how to get revenge on her second husband — who was cheating on her again — and Zayn felt like his brain was about to collapse in on itself. He was sitting on the high bar stool, with his face propped up on his elbow placed on the counter. Some shitty brazilian soap opera was on the telly and Zayn had been watching it for the last 15 minutes. He wanted to switch over for something else, he really did. But the remote was out of his arm’s reach and even though his mind was turning into an inane mash, Zayn was too lazy to move. Basically, it was masochism. Zayn didn’t deserve this. He had always known that his laziness would kill him.

Working at the pizza parlour wasn’t anywhere close to a dream come true but it wasn’t that bad either. There weren’t many places willing to hire students with messed up schedules, so Zayn really couldn't complain. Or shouldn’t, at least. Especially when his morning shifts always looked like that. Nobody — or almost nobody, excluding maybe a few students or a lost tourist — visited a pizza place before 5 pm. So Zayn had absolutely nothing to do, just wasting his time on social media, watching the telly or trying not to fall asleep. And he was getting paid for that, so it was all good. The shity part, however, was that he had to work on almost every weekend and that his boss was an absolute dickhead. But Zayn needed money, rent wasn’t going to pay itself and his roommate wasn’t too helpful with that.

Zayn wasn’t sure whether he had gotten so caught up in the plot or his brain had completely disappeared, but he didn’t notice the sound of the little bell by the door ringing.

“I’d be much less disappointed in you if I caught you watching porn, mate.”

Zayn turned around to see Olly closing the door behind him. He had a smug grin on his face when he approached the counter.

“I turned it on, ‘cause I know it’s your fave. Saw you watching it yesterday when I was heading home.”

Olly’s smile faded at this comment and he clasped a hand over his mouth, gasping dramatically.

“That’s bulshit, obviously. And you have flour in your hair,” Olly bit back. Or at least attempted to.

“Whoa, mate. You really do know how to get back at someone,” Zayn deadpanned. “I’ll never get over that insult.”

In response, Olly lifted his arm to smack Zayn on the head, but the latter ducked, almost falling off the stool in the process. Pretending that it was all planned, Zayn stood up. Following Olly to the back, Zayn went to grab his things so he could go home.

Olly was the one working in the pizza place whenever Zayn did not. In addition to that, he was a really nice lad, who had shown Zayn around and helped him get used to the job and everything related to it. He was a funny, easy-going man, maybe a bit too immature for someone almost 10 years older than Zayn. But they were getting along really well. Other than them, the only employee was a waitress, Boo. Zayn still wasn’t sure whether it was her real name or just a nickname, but he was never bothered enough to ask.

Taking his backpack from the locker in the backroom, Zayn ignored Olly’s half-naked self and headed to the bathroom. At first he had been a bit caught off guard — and abashed, since Olly had quite a nice body — but he eventually got used to his co-worker’s unashamed approach to changing in shared space. However, Zayn preferred to minimise the possibility of being caught half-naked in the public himself and always used the bathroom. Checking his reflection in the mirror, Zayn realised that he really did had some flour in his hair. It was there probably since he served that couple that dropped by in the morning. He groaned, brushing it down and quickly changing his t-shirt. There were a lot of things he loved about pizza, but he absolutely hated the smell of it clinging to his clothes and hair and everything he owned. Besides, he’d staind so many shirts with sauces, juices and other fun stuff that he’d finally made a habit of bringing a clean one every time.

After gathering all his stuff, Zayn walked out of the bathroom. He chuckled when he saw that Olly had taken his previous spot and that crappy soap opera was still on. Looking under the counter, Zayn tried to find the remote. When he did and changed the channel, a drawn-out “Heyyy!” escaped Olly’s mouth.

“You’re gonna thank me later, mate,” Zayn laughed, leaving some footie game on. “You’re getting into it already. It goes only downhill from there.”

“Sounds like you’ve got some experience in that matter,” Olly pointed out.

“Shut up. I’m gonna leave now and you’ll stay here to suffer alone. Here’s the remote if you prefer to switch back to your series,” Zayn said, placing the remote on the counter and walked towards the door. Completely ignoring Olly yelling obscenities after him, Zayn left the parlour.

It was a few minutes after 3 pm and it was starting to become more and more crowded at the Dean Street around the Soho Square. Zayn gripped at the strap of his backpack as he ran across the street, making his way to his apartment.

Soho. The area stereotypically taken as a lair of everything bad and wrong. People didn’t seem to realise that it stopped being just that around the early 20th century. If it ever had been that, really. They still thought that the only things one could find here were immoral, illegal or at least socially unacceptable and that the only people willing to live here were the immigrants, gays and prostitutes. Tourists tended to be highly disappointed when it turned out that visiting that part of London won’t demoralise them as much as they desired to. Considering how small of an area Soho was, maybe there were a bit more sex-shops than in other parts of the city. And maybe more homosexuals. But seeing them as a local attraction wasn’t really kind. Life here was just different. It was going at it’s own pace, and speed up on weekends. On the other hand — despite the adult shops, clubs and pubs — there was a whole lot of theatres and art galleries. Soho was a longed-for place to live for the rich, families with kids or poor students. This area wasn’t evil straight to the bone. It was just full of contrasts.

Zayn was already halfway the distance to his flat. It rarely took more than 10 minutes, which was another huge advantage of his job. Walking past the same shops he had been seeing every day, Zayn heard the old Spider-man cartoon opening theme, that also happened to be his current ringtone. He fished the phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. His brows furrowed in confusion when he saw that an unknown number was calling. Phone talks had never been too enjoyable for him, but especially when he didn’t know who was on the other side. It just made him anxious. But on the other hand, Zayn was quite a curious person. After another second had passed, Zayn slid the answer button, picking up at the last possible moment.

“Mate, I fucking hate planes. It’s all shaky and damn loud and like. The fact that you’re basically locked in a metal box in the sky is fucking scary. Next time I’m just gonna… I don’t know swim across the sea to visit family, I swear. Oh and besides? These bastards almost lost my luggage? I was waiting for ages and I literally thought that I lost my guitar. I could forgive other things but not if something happened to her. Like I’m very close to changing my mind, maybe transfering here wasn’t that great of an idea.”

Zayn stopped in the middle of a pavement, blinking in confusion. That stream of words he had just heard wasn’t anything he expected. Zayn had no recognition of having any friends that lived abroad or sounded… Irish? He might had some problems with remembering things but he wouldn’t forget anything like that.

There was a short silence on the line and Zayn thought that it was his only chance. Who might had known how long that guy’s next speech could be.

“I’m sorry, but… You’ve probably called the wrong number,” Zayn said.

As a response, Zayn had gotten another pause.

“You don’t sound like Harry,” the voice finally said, confused.

Zayn chuckled, “That might be because I’m not a Harry. You called the wrong guy.”

“Fuck. I’m going to die here,” the unknown caller whined, sounding quite miserable. “It’s my first time alone in London and I don’t even have a way to contact Harry. That fucker, if he changes his number one more time I’m going to kill him. How am I supposed to get to Soho now. I don’t even at which street I live. Darby? Derby?”

“D’Arblay is in Soho,” Zayn prompted politely.

“Oh yes, that’s the one!” the stranger cheered, before asking shyly, “You’re from London? Do you happen to know how can a lost Irishman get from the City Airport to Soho?”

Another laugh escaped Zayn’s mouth. He understood that guy, he really did. Getting lost in a foreign place was no fun at all. Trying to call the best connections to mind, he explained to what stop he should go. The Irishman panicked a bit after hearing that he had to change at some point. Zayn needed to repeat every station’s name about five times — which was quite an achievement since he had never paid much attention them — before the stranger had finally believed that he could do that.

“Ugh, I really hope I’ll remember all this,” the Irishman sighed. “Maybe… If I get lost, could I maybe call you again? You’re literally my guardian angel now I really hope you won’t leave me when I’ll be dying alone somewhere en route?”

“You won’t die, mate, stop worrying,” Zayn said with a small smile on his lips. “Get up, you’re fine.”

A loud cackle came from the other side and Zayn felt the rush of pride that he managed to cheer that guy up at least for a moment. In normal circumstances he would probably be annoyed that some random guy was whining to him for about 10 minutes now. But surprisingly he wasn’t. So before he could think it through Zayn said that the stranger could call him whenever he needed his help again. After sending Zayn hundreds of thank-you’s, the Irishman hung up.

Zayn stared at his phone. It was one of the most — if not the most — unusual phone calls that he’d ever experienced. However weird it might have been — Zayn thought with a smile — that guy seemed nice enough for Zayn to hope that he’d eventually manage to find his way. That was a funny coincidence that the stranger was heading to Soho. For a brief second Zayn wondered if he’d ever bumped into him. It was a bit ridiculous though, there were plenty of people here and even if Zayn had ever stumbled upon that guy, he’d have no idea it was him. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Zayn finally started walking down the street again, since standing in the middle of a pavement for a few good minutes might had looked a bit suspicious.

After a few more minutes, Zayn finally reached the old tenement at Warwick Street. It seemed — and that impression was very accurate, as far as Zayn was concerned — to be not refitted in a long time. And a bit neglected. And just simply old. However, it had one huge advantage: the rent was bearable enough for Zayn to live there. Besides, it looked much better on the inside.

Zayn climbed up the stairs, only a bit embarrassed at how tiring it always was to him. The stairs and Zayn weren’t getting along too well. Trying to calm his breath and find the keys in his backpack, he walked over to the door with a flyblown golden 13 on them. Believing in superstitions wasn’t something that Zayn ever did, but to be honest his life in this flat hadn’t exactly been a bed of roses. His flatmate made sure of it.

Finally fishing his keys out of the very bottom of his backpack, Zayn opened the door. As soon as he entered the tiny hallway, he placed his things on the low partition wall on his right. Zayn sent a quick look at the kitchenette on the other side of it and a growl escaped his mouth.

Zayn wasn’t a neat freak. In fact, he was quite far from that, he usually had a proper mess in his room as well. Nevertheless, he wanted his flat not to look like a random rubbish dump. Unfortunately, Nate — his flatmate — didn’t share this need and was quite skilled at ruining Zayn’s attempts to keep their flat at a bearable level of tidiness. Zayn couldn’t care less about what Nate’s room looked like, he was in there only once and he didn’t feel to tempted to visit it again. But he did care about the state the kitchen was in and that place was constantly (like right now for example) scattered with Nate’s stuff. The table they had in the kitchenette was barely big enough to contain two plates and yet Zayn’s flatmate was able to clutter it with his papers, books and other random crap. Even the chairs were covered in his clothes. A talented lad, Nate was.

Dropping his backpack and jacket in his bedroom at the end of the hallway, Zayn went back to the kitchen. He opened the door to Nate’s room and started throwing his things where they’d came from. Well, maybe not books. Zayn wasn’t throwing books, he was a better person than that, even if angry. But he left them on the floor in his flatmate’s bedroom and closed the doors behind him.

Going back to the kitchenette, Zayn dumped a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink, draining them with water. The counter was covered in crumbs, tomato slices — all dried up, sticking to the surface and rather not-yummy — and a whole lot of other stains. Zayn didn’t want to know where they came from.

It took Zayn over an hour to clean up the mess in there. Taking advantage of the cleaning spree he’d fallen into, he also did laundry and tidied up his own room a bit. Getting all that work done made him a bit better, but also tired him out.

Once again, Zayn went to the — now clean and cosy again — kitchen. He grabbed at the fridge’s door and just like that, the tiny spark of good mood he had was blown off.

First of all, the fridge they had in the flat was rather an old one and sometimes it acted up, but it worked just fine if one knew how to deal with it. For example, you had to make sure you closed it properly, because the door and the seals in it were a bit time-worn. And didn’t matter how many times Zayn told Nate about it, the latter still liked to leave it open. Because why not? It wasn’t like leaving the fridge open for a whole day was a bad thing, right?

And second of all, Nate had ate all of the leftovers from Zayn’s dinner yesterday and the only item in the fridge was a half empty bottle of ketchup, some lettuce and empty box of milk.

Sometimes Zayn really hated his life.

With a sigh, Zayn grabbed his jacket and wallet before leaving the apartment. After a short walk he reached a small grocery store. Walking inside, he greeted an elderly lady behind the counter with a smile. Trying to figure out what he wanted to have for lunch and what didn’t required a shit-ton of work or money, Zayn was aimlessly walking around the store. Finally, he grabbed a pack of pasta and a jar of some pre-prepared sauce. Maybe if he pretended hard enough and put a lot of spices in there it would taste good. Adding a bottle of water, some snacks and other things, Zayn headed to the counter.

“Oh love, you’re gonna get sick if you keep eating stuff like that,” the lady said, shaking her head disapprovingly.

“I’ll be fine, Miss Harper,” Zayn answered, chuckling at her squinting her eyes at the sauce she’d just scanned. “I just came home from work and don’t really have time to cook anything.”

Zayn had lived in the neighbourhood and Miss Harper had worked here long enough for them to become quite familiar with each other. And by that, Zayn meant that they chatted for a bit every time Zayn happened to do his shopping there. She was a very nice lady and she kind of reminded Zayn of his mother, with all that complaining about his unhealthy habits and other things.

“You young ones never have time for taking care of yourselves. I was just like you once, the quicker you see that it’s not that hard as it seems, the better.”

“I know, Miss Harper. You don’t have to worry about me, I’ll be just fine.”

He only partially paid attention to the rest of her tirade about how such food could damage his body.

“If you don’t have time, you should find yourself a nice girl. Or a boy. So they could take care of you. But they’d have to know how to cook, because if they don’t then what’s the point?” Miss Harper wondered, beeping Zayn’s stuff. “You’re a very handsome man but you’re not getting younger, it’s about the time to start looking around.”

“Miss Harper, I’m 22,” Zayn chuckled again, throwing his stuff into a plastic bag. “I think I still have some time to wonder about settling down.”

The lady only sent him a disapproving glance and said something about the last chance, since he’d be 30 soon. Zayn paid for the shopping and waved the cashier goodbye as he walked out of the store. Miss Harper was a nice lady but sometimes a bit crazy and too invested in Zayn’s life, especially the romances. Just like his mother. And that only reminded Zayn that there hadn’t been any romance in his life for a good while.

After getting back to the flat, Zayn prepared his lunch. While he was waiting for the pasta to cook, he went to his room and took a pile of his phonetics notes. He really should had gotten through them earlier. With a sigh, he plopped down at one of the kitchen chairs and tried to made any sense of what he was looking at. Why did he even have to learn this shit? He was majoring in English for literature, not this linguistic crap they were trying to teach him. It was surprisingly hard to understand what he was even reading. Besides, soon enough his mind was taken off the task by his pasta.

Zayn finished making the food and then ate a huge serving of - not that bad - pasta. That in addition to all the work he did earlier really tired Zayn out. Gathering back his notes, he shambled to his room. Face down, he fell on his bed and stayed like that for a while. Only when he started to lack air, he rolled onto his side and wriggled himself under the covers. The phonetics materials were staring at him accusingly, so Zayn did the only thing he could do in a situation like this. He picked it all up and stuffed into the drawer of his bedside table.

With a content sigh, Zayn nestled against his pillow more comfortably and closed his eyes.  
  
***

When he woke up, it was starting to get dark outside. Shooting a quick glance at his phone, he realised that it was already past 7 pm. His short nap turned into a two-hour one. Zayn had no regrets, though. Rolling onto his back, his brain started to come back to reality and Zayn had realised what had woken him up.

There were loud noises coming from the kitchen. Zayn heard the cabinets doors banging, plates clanking and Nate singing. Quite badly, if you’d ask Zayn, but he could be a bit biased. He rolled out of the bed, walking towards the source of the noise.

“Hiya, Zayner!” Nate greeted him with a grin on his face.

Zayn mumbled something under his breath. Taking a yogurt out of the fridge, he looked around the kitchenette. Nate was already on a good way to mess it up again.

“I’ve just cleaned up after you, fucker. How you’re doing this?” Zayn sighed.

“I have many talents,” Nate laughed.

Zayn only rolled his eyes at that, “Wish at least one of them was useful. Don’t be a dick and leave this place clean for once. And shut the bloody fridge.”

Throwing the empty container to the bin, Zayn walked out, ignoring the “okay, mum!” Nate yelled after him. Knowing that this day was already wasted, Zayn took a shower and went back to bed. It was as good time as any to catch up with his shows. The hour was still quite early, so Zayn hoped that he’d go to bed at a reasonable hour this time.

He was wrong, obviously. When he’d finally dozed off, with his laptop still in his lap, it was already quarter to 3 am.

***

Life had a lot of unwritten rules. Some of them were nice, while others… not so much. And the bad thing was that the only way to learn them was the hard way. For example Zayn learned — and already had the opportunity to check that rule a few times — that the less you studied, the bigger was the possibility of your ignorance being noticed and punished.

Like today, when Zayn started a day with a phonetics test, thinking longingly about the notes he had so cruelly abandoned the day before. After all this time, he really should stop being surprised when things like that were happening.

It was unfair though. He did a good deed yesterday, the Universe could had been kinder to him in exchange. Zayn smiled, thinking about that lost Irishman. The day before, he caught himself doing that a few times. And about 9 pm he had received a series of texts from an unknown number that said:

_in case you were wondering - i’ve made it !! found my way to soho and boarded the wrong train only once . be proud ;p_

_btw it’s niall_

_i mean the guy with a wrong number?_

_don’t think i introduced myself properly earlier_

_anyway - thanks for the help mate i owe u_

Zayn answered him that he was indeed proud and that it wasn’t a big deal. The thought that he saved some poor guy from sleeping at the airport and getting lost somewhere in the city was a nice one, though.

***

“Whoa, you look worse than usually,” Zayn heard as soon as he had left the university building.

“And you’re surprisingly nice today, Tommo.”

A small man jumped off the low brick wall he was sitting on and joined Zayn with a grin on his face.

“I am always nice, I don’t know what you mean,” Louis stated, offended. “I could’ve say that you look like an absolute crap. But I didn’t.”

Zayn chuckled, shaking his head at his friend. “Thank you, means a lot.”

“No problem, lad. You’ve been watching that weird show of yours again?”

“It’s not weird and you’d like it if you gave it a chance.”

“No thanks, I prefer things that has the chance to happen in real life,” Louis said.

Zayn raised an eyebrow at that, “but you do know that the Avengers aren’t ac—”

Before he managed to finish the sentence, Louis smacked him on the arm. He had a lot of strength for someone his size. “Shut your mouth, smartass. You won’t get anything to eat, if you behave like this.”

“You’re making pancakes again?” Zayn smirked. “If so, I don’t think I’m hungry anyway.”

“Actually I have a lot of homemade stuff from my mum but they’re most definitely not for you, wanker.”

Both of them knew that it was a lie. Louis wasn’t half as bad as he wanted to be seen, but pointing it out wasn’t the best idea. He had an image to take care of.

The way to Louis’ flat took them about 20 minutes. At least the weather was good enough so they didn’t have to crush into an already overcrowded bus. It rarely was a pleasant experience.

After all those years of knowing each other, they had fallen into some kind of routine. And since their schedules this year were pretty similar, they usually hung out at Louis’ place after classes. The advantage of it was that Zayn’s friend lived alone in a tiny studio, without any shitty flatmates to deal with. Sometimes Louis joked that since Zayn was always leaving his crap around his place, he could just move in. But Zayn wasn’t ready to exchange a nice flat with Nate for a place on the floor at Louis’. Not yet, at least.

As soon as they entered Louis’ flat, Zayn walked towards the bed, falling onto it but remembering to leave his shoes out off the bed.

“Don’t be so dramatic and take off your shoes,” Lou said, smacking Zayn on the head as he walked by.

Zayn rolled over onto his back to kick off his shoes and he threw them in the general direction of the door. Shrugging out of his jacket, Zayn faced Louis who was rummaging around the kitchenette

“I’m not dramatic,” Zayn said with a tone dangerously close to a whine. “I’m just very concerned about the possibility of failing classes.”

Putting a kettle on and placing a saucer on the cooker, Louis hopped on the counter and sent Zayn a disapproving glance.

“You’re fine, you always just cry about it and make it in the end. There are worse things. Like you’re not dying or getting kicked out of the apartment,” Louis pointed out.

“Not yet, at least,” Zayn mumbled into the bed. “Nate’s late with his part of the rent.”

“Why are you still living with that dick? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t really have an alternative, I told you. You know how hard it is to find a decent place.”

Nodding, Louis scratched at his chin, pretending that he was deep in thought, “Maybe we just should kill him?”

Zayn chuckled, turning his face to look at his friend and raised an eyebrow, “That would still leave me with his part of the rent to pay.”

They dropped the topic a bit later when Louis announced that the food was ready. With a bowl in his hand, Louis sat on the bed cross-legged. Zayn on the other hand, didn’t really trust himself enough and he was told off a few times after he spilled things on Loui’s beddings. Not wanting to risk being yelled at again, he slid out of the bed and sat on the floor, placing his bowl on the tiny coffee table. As expected from Lou’s mum cooking, the soup was delicious and not just because Zayn had been craving a home-cooked meal for a while.

Chilling there, chatting with his friend and watching the telly was very nice. Too nice, even, since it almost made Zayn forget that he was supposed to work today. With a groan, he reached for his backpack to find his phone and check the time. As soon as he laid his hand on the device, it started ringing. Dumbfounded, Zayn looked at Louis as if the ringing was his fault. Not wasting a single glance in Zayn’s direction, Louis huffed at him to “pick up the bloody phone!”. Only then Zayn looked down to check the screen. The number that had appeared there seemed oddly familiar, Zayn thought before picking up.

“You’re a fucking piece of shite. Not a friend. Friends don’t abandon their friends in the middle of an unknown city for fuck’s sake.”

Yup, Zayn did know that voice and that Irish rumbling. He couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m not a fucking piece of shite, thank you very much. And I’m not really your friend either,” Zayn said.

A heavy groan was the only answer he had received.

“Still haven’t gotten the right number, have you?”

“I knew there was something I was supposed to do,” the Irishman — Niall, if Zayn remembered correctly — said.

“Try making notes on your arm. Sometimes it helps, know from my own experiences.”

For some weird reason, Zayn found himself smiling and after Niall chuckled at his words, Zayn’s grin only grew bigger.

“Promise to try that when I get home. If I get home,” Niall laughed, sounding a bit breathless. “But for now… Will you be as awesome as you were yesterday and help me? This will be the last time, promise!”

“I can try, yeah,” Zayn agreed. “Where are you?”

He heard Niall mumbling “as if I have any fucking idea” under his breath. For the next few minutes, Zayn listened to the Irish lad walking around wherever he was and describing the weirdest things.

“Well, there is a shit-ton of people here. But I guess that might be quite common in London. I think I’ve passed a toy store. Or that actually might be a sex-shop but the point is almost the same, right? There’s a weird-looking barber’s. Looks a bit like the one from Fleet Street. But there’s no bakery nearby. Oh, there’s a puppy! Hello, puppy. We— well, a mean old lady took the puppy away and she sent me a dirty look. This is not a friendly neighbourhood, mate. A grocery store… I should buy milk, I think we’re running short. Um… there’s some square on the other side of the street. A fountain that looks like a weird, angry fish…”

Listening to Niall’s babbling, Zayn tried really hard not to laugh. He was wondering if the other guy really thought he was being helpful. But Zayn decided not to blame him, maybe that was his way to deal with stressful situations. Besides, it was quite funny listening to him, the guy seemed quite cute — if Zayn could judge by those small bits of conversations they had had. And his voice was a really nice one.

“Ok, hold on,” Zayn finally said, interrupting Niall’s stream of words with a laugh. “That’s all very interesting but could you maybe find me a street name? Or a bus stop?”

“... I guess that might be helpful,” Niall agreed after a moment of silence.

Another chuckle escaped Zayn’s mouth. He ignored a - rather concerned - look that was sent his way by Louis. Instead, he focused back on Niall, who had finally found a bus stop. Just like Zayn was expecting, that made everything ten times easier and would spare them both a lot of time. Not that Zayn was complaining about wasting his own, though. He needed a moment to remember how to get from where Niall was to Soho, but after confronting his knowledge with the timetable that Niall had read to him, they’d eventually figured it out. Niall was extremely happy when it turned out that he didn’t need to change buses at all.

“Oh man, you’re really wonderful,” Niall sighed happily. “Like, I’d die without you. I owe you. I’m gonna buy you a pint or seven at some point, promise. Because…” Niall trailed off for a moment, “you’re from London, right? Or do you just happen to have an impressive amount of knowledge about London public transport?”

“Some people love music or collecting stamps and I study London public transport. A man of an unusual hobbies, me,” Zayn joked, hoping that it wasn’t as lame as he thought it was.

It wasn’t or at least Niall had a fucked up sense of humor, because his loud laugh resounded through Zayn’s phone, making the latter smile. Niall was an owner of a variety of laughs and cackles and Zayn was a big fan of every one he had heard so far.

Biting at his lower lip, Zayn added, “But yeah, like. I’m from here.”

What he didn’t add was the fact that he lived about a ten-minute walk from D’Arblay Street. And that they might even cross paths at some point, because he almost always came back from work that way.

“So yeah. A pint. Pinky promise,” Niall decided but then he stumbled a bit. “Now that I’m thinking about it the invite may seem a bit weird, since I still have no idea what’s your name. Should I call you The Phone Guy? Or The Weird Hobby Man? The Pathfinder? Since you always guide me, ya know. Or The Guy With A Grea—”

“It’s Zayn,” Zayn said with a laugh. He was a bit mad at himself for interrupting Niall at this exact moment, since now he didn’t know how the Irishman wanted to finish the sentence he started.

“Zayn.” Niall repeated. “Okay. I mean if you don’t like the nickname Pathfinder…” Niall cackled again. He seemed like a very cheerful lad. It made Zayn smile. “Then Zayn it is. It’s a nice name. So anyway. Thank you so, so much for helping me again, Zayn. You’re saving my life, it’s really— Oh shit, that’s my bus I gotta go. Thank you again, bye!”

Niall also seemed like a very babbly lad. That, too, made Zayn smile.

Shaking his head, Zayn put down his phone, forgetting why he had looked for it in the first place. A small smile was still plastered to his face when he turned his head and met Louis’ gaze. His friend’s eyebrows were high on his forehead and he looked rather disoriented. He didn’t even bother to hide the fact that he was eavesdropping.

“What?” Zayn asked.

“That was one of the weirdest conversations I’ve ever heard.” Louis explained, “And I know people from art school. Who was that?”

“That was… Niall?”

It sounded more like a question, because honestly, Zayn wasn’t really sure who that guy was. He only had that little bits of information he had gathered from their talks. But on the other hand, he didn’t have to know someone’s whole backstory to help them with directions.

“Who’s Niall? That’s a weird name, I don’t know a Niall,” Louis scrunched his nose.

“To be honest I don’t, either. It’s just a guy that called me yesterday. Messed up his friend’s number and got me instead.”

“So you were talking to a stranger?” It confused Louis even more. “Mate, you’re sometimes less chatty while talking to me what the fuck. What did he even want anyway?”

Maybe Louis had a point. Zayn wasn’t a talkative type at all, especially with strangers. But there was something about Niall and his sense of humour and his babbly personality made it easier. The fact that they weren’t having a face to face interaction helped a lot, too. Zayn was quite bad at those.

“He was lost and needed help with finding his way home and I happened to know how to help him. He’s just transferred to London or something,” Zayn shrugged.

Louis looked like he was deep in thought. “And you were guiding him to Soho, right? You might as well guide him straight to your bed. Does he sound like he’s hot? Attractive people tend to have attractive voices. Take me as an example — handsome with a voice of an angel.”

Zayn only raised his eyebrows, sending his friend a disbelieving look.

“What? He might be hot, you can take advantage of the fact that you’ve helped him, he lives in your neighbourhood and you haven’t gotten laid in a while so I think the conclusion is obvious,” Louis pointed out.

With a low growl, Zayn stood up and showed his things back into the backpack. Putting on a jacket, he shoot another look Louis’ way, “OK, I have better things to do other than listening to you. Also how do you know that I haven’t gotten laid? Wait, I don’t wanna know the answer. I’m heading to work, shithead.”

Ignoring the loud “Bye, Zayno!” shouted by Louis, Zayn walked out of the door. He would have to leave anyway, since he was already running late, but he also didn’t want to waste a great opportunity for a dramatic exit.

Halfway through his way to work, Zayn cursed at himself for not taking a bus. He might had forgotten that Lou’s place was further away than his own and at this point there was no way he’d made it on time. He typed out a quick message to Olly to let him know he was running late. The good thing was, that his workmate never got angry at such things. Maybe because Zayn was covering for him just as many times.

However, the first person Zayn bumped into after entering the parlour wasn’t Olly. Instead, he faced his boss, who did not looked very happy, seeing Zayn’s dog-weary self.

“You are late,” his boss dead-panned.

Zayn glanced at the clock hung on the wall behind the counter. It was roughly ten minutes past four o’clock.

“Just a bit, I—”

“Your shift starts at four, doesn’t it?” sending Zayn another nasty glance, Zayn’s boss shoved past him to walk out of the parlour.

Confused, Zayn stood in the middle of the — almost empty, excluding a pair in the far corner — place, staring at the spot where his boss was just a few seconds ago. When he finally lifted his gaze, he spotted Olly. The older lad only gave him a helpless shrug.

“I’d say he’s having a bad day but I guess his whole life is a helluva long bad day. This must be a distinguishing feature for people like him,” Olly said when Zayn approached him. “Would warn you but he showed up just a few minutes ago.”

“It’s ok, thanks anyway, mate,” Zayn sighed. “I have a feeling he doesn’t like me for some reason.”

“I doubt he really likes anybody, don’t make yourself special.”

***

The shift had passed Zayn very uneventfully, if not boringly. It wasn’t really surprising since it was Tuesday, which meant the middle of the week, which meant that not many people had time to party or even going out. The only customers  Zayn had during the six-hour shift was a group of five guys who came in for a pint and cleared out before 8.30PM. There wasn’t any important games today and football seemed to hold this business together. It was half-past nine when Zayn started to slowly close up. Technically he should be here for another half-hour but his previous experiences had taught him that there won’t be any more clients tonight.

After locking the front door, Zayn wrapped his jacket tighter around himself, trying to somehow shield himself from the chilly autumn air and the annoying drizzle. His efforts didn’t do much, so he only quickened his pace. After few more minutes, he’d finally reached his tenement. As soon as he entered the staircase, he heard a low hum of music coming from one of the flats. Zayn really hoped it wasn’t coming from his and Nate’s one. However, with every step he was crushing his puny hope, since the noises were growing louder and louder. Reaching his floor, Zayn groaned loudly, banging his head against the door marked with the number 13. Over the music and screams inside, Zayn’s suffering went unnoticed, though.

Resigned, mad and knackered all of sudden, Zayn entered the flat. The door to Nate’s room was wide open and there were some people wandering between his flatmate’s bedroom and the kitchenette, screaming, drinking and disrupting Zayn’s peace. He counted around ten people and it felt like at least nine too many. Ignoring some shouting aimed in his direction, Zayn tried to get to his room.

“Aye, Zayner!” yelled Nate, who walked out of the bathroom just as Zayn was reaching for the doorknob of his oasis. “What’s up, mate?”

“Just back from work and I’m not into partying mood, ya know?” Zayn sent his flatmate a tired look.

“You sure? There’s some booze, pot and the lads in there,” Nate pointed at the other part of the flat.

“No thanks,” Zayn might have sounded like a grouch but he didn’t even care at this point. He’d experienced way too many evenings like that to pretend he wasn’t pissed. “Also I don’t want to be a knob but I thought you were ‘broke as fuck’ and that’s why you haven’t paid your part of the rent yet? And yet you’re partying?”

“Well, I’ve got some money today and I’m celebrating!” Nate cackled, seemingly very pleased with himself. “But don’t worry Zayner, I’ll give you everything by the end of the week.”

It took all of Zayn’s willpower not to roll his eyes and sigh heavily at that. Instead, he only nodded and opened his bedroom door, closing it just as soon to prevent Nate from thinking it was an invitation to continue the talk.

Falling onto his bed face first, Zayn growled one more time into the mattress. He took out his phone and typed out an angry message to Louis, containing a lot of curses and words “Nate” and “party” squeezed in between them somewhere. After just a few seconds he’d received a reply.

From: **Lou**  
_kick im in the groin and smash a bottle on his head from me!!_  
Tuesday, 10:12PM

Right after that came a photo of Louis feet propped up on the table next to two unopened bottles of beer and some episode of F. R. I. E. N. D. S. playing on the telly. The third text only said: _“u commin or no?”_

“ _i’ll be there in 15 minutes_ ” Zayn typed out as a reply. He wouldn’t be able to fall asleep to this noise anyway. Picking up the school backpack he abandoned by the door, Zayn made sure the wallet and keys were in there. He’d get everything else from Louis’, he was spending there way too much time to worry about bringing a spare t-shirt or even a toothbrush. Probably half of his belongings were scattered around his friend’s place. Quickly leaving the apartment, Zayn hoped he would catch the last bus and if he had banged the front door behind him a bit too loudly, he really, really couldn’t bring himself to care.

***

“Get in here, loser,” was what Lou said, seeing Zayn’s miserable self in his doorstep.

But there was a cold beer and a warm blanket waiting for him and Louis let him lay down and rest his head on Lou’s lap. Zayn even got a gentle head scratch as they watched “The One with Joey’s Bag.” So maybe Zayn was a loser but at least he had the best friend one could get.

***

“I’m at Pimlico station and if I get on the Tube to Brixton it will take me home, right?”

“No, mate. That’s like the complete opposite direction. You need to find one that goes to Walthamstow. It’s around 3 stops from there. Also you really should buy a map or something, you know?”

“Pfffff. I’m a strong and independent man, Zayn. I don’t need maps, Zayn. I’m handling everything on me own, Zayn.”

“Yeah, sorry. I admire your independence, I really do.”

During the last week or so, Zayn had many conversations like that. Quite surprisingly, he didn’t mind being an information desk. In exchange, he could listen to Niall’s babbling, to his lame jokes and his laugh that seemed to always cheer him up. Which was unusual since they still were just strangers who crossed paths by accident. But talking to Niall was the most entertaining and the most interesting thing that happened to Zayn in a really long time.

The more they talked, the more bits of information about Niall Zayn had. He knew that Niall was Irish and transferred to University here from Dublin. He knew that Niall’s mum was also living in London but she was even worse with directions than he was. Zayn also knew his best friend’s name was Harry and that he was a traitor. Mostly because he was majoring in sociology and his Institute was in the other part of the city than the Physics one where Niall was studying Astronomy.

So maybe they weren’t total strangers now.

Except they still were. Probably. Zayn felt a bit ridiculous.

***

Another lazy day at work was almost over for Zayn. For the last few minutes he was staring at the clock that showed 2:43PM and hoped that if he stared hard enough, the hands would go faster. They didn’t. And — as usual — the closer to the end of his shift, the more impatient Zayn was getting. Reaching for his phone — abandoned on the counter a while ago — Zayn unlocked it to check the messages, even though there were no notifications of a new one. Zayn scrolled through his conversation with Niall. Since day one it had grew significantly longer. Asks how to get from point A to point B of course, a screenshot of Niall’s phonebook where Zayn’s number was saved as “The Pathfinder”, some simple “how are you’s” exchanged now and then. In the last message Niall was complaining that he needed to get something done in the city and he was already exhausted just by thinking of it. Zayn wished him good luck and said to let him know how it went. It wasn’t anything… obligating, so Zayn shouldn’t feel sad that Niall hadn’t answered him.

The bell by the door made a soft noise, shaking Zayn out of his thoughts. He put the phone down and smiled at the two ladies that just entered the pizza parlour. They held hands as they walked towards the counter and ordered just two teas. Which wasn’t really an unusual order, at such hours people often came here just to have a cup of tea or coffee and the pizzeria was way less crowded than the fancy coffee shops in the area.

As Zayn was carrying a tray to the table in the corner the girls had chosen, he heard his phone ringing. Apologising to his customers, he rushed to silence the noise. A smile appeared on his face when he noticed that it was Niall calling.

But as soon as he had picked up, his face fell because instead of the usual, cheerful hello, he was greeted by a heavy breathing. Zayn’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“Hello?”

“Zayn, I—” Niall started, his voice choked, making Zayn barely recognise it.

“What happened, Niall? Are you alright?” Zayn walked around the counter and went to the back. He stood in the door frame, to keep an eye on the main area but also have a little privacy.

“I’m—fuck. I don’t know what happened, I’m usually handling it, it haven’t been so bad in a while,” Niall chuckled but there wasn’t any happiness to it. “There’re just so many people and. Fuck, I can’t breathe.”

Running a hand through his hair, Zayn cursed under his breath. It seemed like Niall was having a panic attack and he was alone with it god-knows-where. Zayn barely knew how to handle his own, leave alone someone else’s.

“It’s OK, Niall. I’m pretty sure you can, it’s just your brain messing with you, yeah?” he started, trying to keep his voice as calm as he could. “Just focus on me, OK?” Zayn took a loud, deep breath. “Oh come on, Niall, you have to cooperate?”

Letting a small laugh, he hoped to catch Niall’s attention, even though he was very nervous himself. Eventually, it worked. Niall followed Zayn’s instructions and finally managed to slow down his breath. Zayn was talking about the most mundane things to give Niall something to focus on, to keep his mind from thinking about whatever scared him so much.

“Where are you?” Zayn asked after a while when Niall seemed to be a bit calmer.

“I’m at the Tube, wanted to go home but—” Niall stopped for a moment and took another breath before continuing, “All of sudden it got so crowded I had no idea where I am and I couldn’t move, couldn’t make my way to the escalators, I wanted to get away from there but, fuck. I felt like I’m gonna die, crushed by all those people.”

“I’m so sorry, Niall. But it’s better now, isn’t it? You made it, so don’t worry. Is there less people at the station now? You can always go back and take a bus instead.”

Making a small, absent-minded sound, Niall trailed off for a moment and Zayn just heard his — finally nice and slow — breath and some rustling. “Um. I think it’s better now. Or it just looks better, I don’t know. Fuck, I feel so stupid now. I’m really not that bad, I got a hold on that stupid claustrophobia, mostly. Totally capable of handling traveling by the tube, for example. Sometime it just hits me and I get— paralysed,” Niall chuckled nervously. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve called you, you’re probably busy. You were just the first person I thought of, I don’t know why. I just like your voice, I guess, it’s really calming and I thought of how you always help me and if it wasn’t for you I—”

“Niall.” Zayn said simply, stopping Niall’s surging flow of words. Ignoring the warm feeling they had caused, he added, “You’re babbling. It’s really OK. I’m not mad and you haven’t interrupted anything. I’m glad you’ve called me and that I could help. Although, you’ve made it yourself so kudos for you, mate.”

They chatted a bit more and eventually Niall decided he was feeling well enough to take the next train. Zayn stayed on the line for as long as it took for Niall to get on and they hung up just before it started off, since the signal would got lost anyway. Before the conversation ended, Niall managed to apologise and thank Zayn for about million times more. Zayn only continued to reassure him that it was completely fine.

After the line went silent, for a few seconds Zayn only stared at the phone in his hand. He didn’t think he would be this shaken and worried after such talk. On the other hand—panic attacks were awful, no matter whether it affected him, his friends or strangers. It made him angry that from all the people out there, nobody cared enough to pay attention to struggling Niall and to try to help him.

Shaking his head, Zayn calmed himself down. It wasn’t anything he could change. And besides it was all over now, he reminded himself as he looked at the clock. It was already almost half to four. He had no idea that so much time had passed and he also didn’t know where Olly was. Typing out a quick message to his older colleague, Zayn went to the back to change his clothes quickly.

Instead of answering his text, Olly showed up a few moments later, breathless and with an apologetic look on his face. Because of the phone talk Zayn had with Niall, he didn’t even had time to get mad at Olly, but it was nice to know that he was genuinely sorry for making Zayn stay an extra time at work.

“I’ve missed like fifteen buses, I’m so sorry mate,” Olly  said, moving past Zayn to get to the back room. “I’d tell you earlier, but my phone is at 2% or so, I need to plug it ASAP.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Zayn smiled, taking his things. “I’m heading home now, yeah?”

Olly only waved at him, shouting one more apology before Zayn left.

***

From: **Niall** **  
**_me mind might’ve been a bit clouded earlier but i did mean what i said_ _  
_ Monday, 8:47PM

From: **Niall**  
_i mean i could’ve happened upon some dick but i got u instead ;p_ _  
_ Monday, 8:47PM

From: **Niall**  
_kinda glad i’ve messed up that number lol_ _  
_ Monday, 8:50PM

***

“You sexting with that Irish guy of yours again?” Louis asked, the mockery  in his voice as clear as a day.

“Not sexting,” Zayn sighed. He had to go through that conversations too many times already, so he didn’t even bother to look up from his phone.

And so what if he was indeed texting with Niall. They were in— as friendly relations as two strangers could be in.

“To be honest, sexting will be more understandable. This is quite weird, mate,” Louis scrunched his nose. “Have you at least found out if he’s hot? Did he sent you a selfie? Or a dick pick?”

“Yeah, cause that’s obviously what people do.”

Zayn pocketed his phone and sent a half-resigned and half-amused look at Louis.

“‘M gonna leave you two alone then. Remember to wash those dirty hands of yours before you’ll serve the customers.”

Louis tried to give Zayn a nipple twist, but it wasn’t an easy task because of all the layers of clothing Zayn was wearing. Instead, Louis grabbed at his friend’s face, squeezing his cheeks and placed a loud, obnoxious kiss on his lips before Zayn could wriggle out of his grip.

“But remember that I’m your one and only, Zaynie!” Louis yelled, hugging Zayn before walking away with a grin on his face.

Zayn shook his head with a fond smile. Wondering when he agreed to have every one of his boundaries repeatedly violated like that, he pulled at the door to the pizzeria and slipped inside.

The last traces of good humour and happiness that were still in Zayn disappeared as soon as he realised that his boss was there. Sitting behind the bar, the man was staring at Zayn like a predator ready to attack and he looked angry. Or, well, at least more angry than he usually looked.

“I’m glad that you’ve finished snogging with that guy and decided to finally come to work,” Zayn’s boss said loudly, making the few people who were inside turn their heads to check what was happening.

The man glanced expectantly at the clock. Zayn also glanced at it but he was really confused and had to double check. It was barely six minutes past four, which meant that his shift started exactly six minutes ago. Zayn raised his eyebrows, genuinely surprised that he was being told off because of that.

“I need to talk to you,” the man said, making Zayn finally tore his eyes off the clock and when Zayn glanced at the bar, his boss was already disappearing behind the back door.

Not sure whether he meant “I need to talk to you in general” and he walked out because of reasons or if it was “I need to talk to you at this exact moment,” Zayn just stood there in the middle of the parlour, confused. Eventually, he decided that his boss was very far from being a chatty person so it must had mean that the case was very urgent or it wouldn’t had been mentioned. So Zayn followed him.

As soon as he passed the door he was greeted by, “I can’t tolerate such insubordination.”

“What insubordination?” I’m literally five minutes late,” Zayn said, disbelief clear in his voice.

“Don’t be so clever now, you’re late. And the last time I was here, you were late as well.”

Both cases—summed up—added up to fifteen minutes. Zayn didn’t think the parlour would go bankrupt because of that. Olly once showed up hour and a half late and they had survived. But Zayn wasn’t going to rat his mate out.

Before he even got the chance to defend himself, his boss spoke again.

“Besides, it’s not OK for you to flash around your faggotry and kiss some guy in front of my place. Some people might not be fine with that and I won’t let that scare away our clients.”

Zayn eyebrows shoot up and he blinked a few times, not quite believing in what he had just heard.

“Well. If _you_ are not fine with that, you’ve picked quite a bad area to open your business,” Zayn pointed out before he could bit at his tongue.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t the best thing he could possibly say because his boss’ face turned red and he seemed like steam was about to come out of his ears.

“Watch your language, boy,” the man grounded out. “You don’t have the right to speak to me like that. You think I don’t know what you’re doing in here? I saw how you were chatting on the phone for half an hour when there were customers inside. You are unrespectful and you keep disobeying my rules. I deserve some damn respect and gratefulness, I had hired you despite your race and now—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Zayn said calmly, even though the he felt like he was about to explode. “Everything makes sense now. You’ve been treating me like rubbish from the very beginning not because I’ve been ‘disrespecting your rules’ but because you’re a bloody racist and a homophobe, it turns out. I don’t care about your false accusations or the fact that you were using the video surveillance to find an excuse to yell at me. But I won’t have any fucking respect for someone who shits on who I am.”

Not saying anything more, Zayn turned around on his heel and stormed out of the parlour.

After a few minutes of angry wandering around, Zayn calmed down enough to gather his thoughts. To be honest, he never was the loud and gutsy one so his reaction surprised even himself. But he always felt the need to stand for himself while confronted with such people. It was something his dad always said to him. That he had all the rights to be proud of himself, of the person who he was, of his descent, religion, sexuality or heritage. And that he should let others see that pride too. It would be hard, his dad always said, but your value is worth proving.

Apparently the hard part of it included bad consequences like losing a job for example. But it was better this way, Zayn tried to convince himself. He would rather become homeless than have to look at this wanker for another second.

Zayn cursed under his breath, anger still buzzing in his veins. It was pretty damn unfair that his boss—former boss—was a racist piece of shit and yet, Zayn was the one to lose his only source of income.

Since he was—apparently—unemployed, Zayn crawled towards his house. He had a very important thing to do anyway. The thing included sleeping through the rest of this horrible day and ignoring the big, bad world.

Entering his flat about fifteen minutes later, Zayn tried to stop himself from looking around much. It would arguably made his mood flop even more. However, he really had something of a masochist in himself and a loud groan escaped his mouth at the sight of the messy kitchenette. If he had already lost his job, Zayn might as well have a fight with Nate and lose the flat as well, he thought. Go big or go home—whilst you still had it. The good thing was that Nate wasn’t around, so Zayn’s combativeness had to wait. Until then, he dragged himself to his room. Taking off his jeans, he slid under the covers.

Only a few seconds after he closed his eyes, the blaze of his ringtone pierced through the room. Zayn took a deep breath, trying to ignore it. Unfortunately it was too loud and annoying. Mumbling curses under his breath, Zayn rolled over and fished his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans. Not looking at the screen, he wanted to decline it. But his finger slipped—obviously—and made him accept the call. Cursing once more, he brought it closer to his ear.

“Harry, you won’t believe what happened—” an annoyingly excited voice with an Irish lilt said.

Zayn was quite far from wanting to deal with happy people right now. Or in the next week.

“I’m not Harry for fuck’s sake,” Zayn snapped, cutting Niall off. “Will you please stop messing those numbers over and over again?”

For a second or two it was silent. Zayn sighed, running his hand over his face. It wasn’t fair to lace into Niall like that, he didn’t do anything wrong. He was just guilty of being the first person Zayn had interacted with after the thing with his boss happened. It wasn’t a good enough reason to be a dick. Zayn tried to decide if he should apologise to Niall or simply hang up to prevent himself for saying something rude again and be able to go back to wallowing in self-pity.

Before he could do any of those things, Niall spoke again, his voice calm and maybe a bit wary this time, “I’m sorry. Is everything alright, though?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Zayn said, but even he could tell that he sounded tired and miserable. He still had hope that Niall won’t notice it, especially through the phone. “I’m sorry, too. Didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“Well, you don’t sound like you’re fine, you know?” Niall let out a small laugh, ignoring Zayn’s apology. “I mean. I won’t push you but if something happened maybe I could help?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Zayn tried to stop another heavy sight that eventually escaped his mouth. He was really concerned it would become a habit of his.

“Just had an awful fucking day,” he said, defeated. “I lost my job, like, less than an hour ago.”

“Oh no, why? What happened?” Niall sounded genuinely concerned.

And that—the plain worry Niall offered him—was probably the reason Zayn told him. He told Niall about his racist, homophobic boss, about how he gave him shit for his friend kissing him as a joke, about how he was spying on him. He told Niall about Nate and the mess he was always leaving. He told Niall about how he was worried of not being able to survive the next month and how Zayn’s mum would worry when he told her what happened.

After letting everything out, Zayn took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if he had ever produced as many words at once. He wasn’t even sure if Niall was still there or if he had just hung up at some point. Zayn wouldn’t really blame him if he did.

As it turned out, Niall had made it till the end and was still there. And the first thing he said after hearing Zayn’s story was a long stream of curse words addressed to Zayn’s boss and his flatmate. Some of them were ridiculous yet very creative and some Zayn couldn’t even understand.

It seemed like that was exactly what Zayn needed in that moment. Listening to Niall cursing for a good few minutes, made him huf out a small laugh. In response, Niall stumbled on his words, letting out a chuckle as well. A second later, they were both laughing out loud.

“See, I promised I’d help,” Niall said eventually.

“You’ve got a very skillful mouth,” Zayn chuckled.

“Um, wait till you see what it can do in real life.”

Hearing Niall’s comment, Zayn mentally took a step back and realised how his words might sounded like. He felt his face heat up.

“That’s not—” he stumbled. “I meant— I meant I wouldn’t even be able to pronounce half of those.

“Of course that’s what you meant,” Niall mocked. Zayn just rolled his eyes at that, with still burning cheeks but also a smile slowly spreading on his face.

Before speaking again, Niall cleared his throat, “But seriously. I’m sorry it ended up like this but maybe it’s a good thing you don’t have to be around that dick anymore. I wish I could help you with the job thing, but I’m currently looking for one myself. So I know how hard it is. I’m rather useless in that case. I can offer you a pint to cheer you up. But on the other hand I think you might want to start saving money, just in case. So I’m a rubbish help in general,” Niall laughed out loud, making Zayn chuckle as well.

“Nah, you’re fine. Sorry for whining by the way. You could had just hung up halfway through and ignore me,” Zayn said, biting at his lip.  The embarrassment was slowly taking over him, like a time-delayed bomb.

“You haven’t done it when I needed help did you?” Niall pointed out simply. “Besides, I really wanted to make you smile, is that okay?”

“Well… Yeah, it is. It’s—like—very nice. Thank you,” Zayn run a hand through his hair. He was afraid, he had been on the verge of saying something stupid. Or even more embarrassing that he already did so far. “You succeeded, though.”

Here it was. Feeling like he was floating, he listened to another chuckle. How much can one person laugh, seriously? Zayn was a tiny bit astonished but mostly he was endeared.

“That’s nice, that’s good,” even after he stopped giggling, Zayn was able to hear a smile in his voice. “Mission completed then. I can cross that out my bucket list.”

“I’m on your bucket list?” Zayn raised an eyebrow. Was he flirting? If so, he probably should stop, it rarely ended well for him.

“Cheering you up was on my to-do list, but if you want, you might be as well.”

That was… unexpected. Zayn though—hoped even—that his cumbersome flirting would go unnoticed at the very best. But—as most things in his life—it didn’t go as he planned it to. Surprisingly, instead of hanging up, Niall flirted back, which had really thrown Zayn off. He was lost and had no idea how to react. Usually if he was going somewhere with his flirting, he was pissed drunk at some bar with Louis. And he had never flirted with a random guy on the phone. A guy he had never met and yet talked to him on a daily basis and got all weird and mushy because of him. It all seemed quite surreal. Zayn didn’t complain though.

Before his brain started up again, Zayn heard Niall clearing his throat.

“Um—So yeah,” Niall started, sounding more sheepish than ever. “I really hope everything will work out for you as quickly as possible. I’d say sorry for messing the numbers again, but… I’m really not. It was a real craic.”

“I’m not sure what that means, but I guess it was,” Zayn cackled, not really controlling it anymore.

“This is exactly what I meant!” Niall pointed out, as it explained anything. “Kick that fucking flatmate of yours from me when he comes back.”

“Will do,” Zayn promised, grinning to himself. He wasn’t sure whether it was Niall’s words or the idea of kicking Nate’s ass that made him this happy.

“Now, I should go, have some crap to do. I’ll let you go back to sleep as you’d probably planned,” Niall laughed.

There was a short moment of silence, interrupted by Niall’s deep inhale before he said, “And like—I hope we’ll get to going for that pint eventually. Since I assume we might live relatively close to each other.”

“Um—,” Zayn stumbled, but before he could think twice he added, “Sure, that would be great.”

“That’s grand!” Niall said. “Bye, Zayn, have a good day. Or—well—at least the rest of it.”

“Bye, Niall.”

***

Weirdly enough, when Zayn had woken up in the early evening, a hint of smile was still dancing on his lips.

***

“OK, you’re becoming ridiculous,” Louis said, making a disgusted face.

It took Zayn’s brain a few moments to process that those words were aimed at him. He looked up from his phone, blinking funnily at his friend.

“Wha’?” Zayn asked, confused.

“You. Are. Fucking. Ridiculous.” Louis articulated, mockery so clear in his voice that it was basically dripping on the floor from his mouth.

“‘m not, fuck off,” Zayn mumbled.

Sending an awfully telling glance at the phone in Zayn’s hands, Louis raised his eyebrows at his friend. In return, Zayn locked his mobile and calmly put it aside, as if he hadn’t spent last twenty minutes texting with Niall about one of his professors that had an annoying habit of saying “it basically means” every two sentences. Niall tried to count how many times it would be said during a 90-minute lecture, but he had lost count after the 31st time. Zayn really should feel bad about ignoring Louis like that.

“Is this that Irishman of yours again?”Lou asked.

Zayn scratched at the back of his neck, feeling sheepish and a bit embarrassed all of sudden, “Maybe?”

“I’m quite impressed, to be honest,” Louis said wistfully. “What are you two even talking about?”

“I don’t know, everything? And nothing basically,” Zayn shrugged, not feeling the need to share the more important conversations they had had. It would only made Louis mock him more, probably.

“That’s deep. But from what I see and hear—sometimes despite my will—you’re having fun, aren’t you? Why haven’t you met with him already?” Louis leaned back on the chair. It croaked pathetically. Zayn watched it with a hint of worry as Louis tried to prop his legs up on Zayn’s kitchen table. When he succeeded, Zayn pushed them back down, almost making Louis lose the balance.

“Is he ugly?” Louis leaned forward conspiratorially, pretending that his pride hadn’t been harmed. “Like hideously ugly?”

“No,” Zayn declined automatically. But after giving it a second thought, he added with furrowed brows, “or—well, I actually don’t know.”

Receiving another disapproving glance from his friend, Zayn wondered whether Louis was just being rude all the time or did he really do so many disapproval–worthy things. It was probably all on Louis.

“Ask him for a selfie, dickhead,” Louis said like it was the most obvious thing to do.

Zayn rolled his eyes, “Yeah, sure. Hey Niall, send me a selfie so I can prove my friend you’re not hideous.” Laughing at Louis’ nodding, he added, “I’m not doing that.”

“It’s sweet how you assume he’s not, though,” Louis grinned.

Sliding off his chair, Lou made his way to the cooker and put the kettle on. He took out two mugs and proceeded to rummage through the cabinets in Zayn’s kitchen for a bit more, mumbling something to himself.

“Neil,” he said a bit louder for Zayn to hear him and then snorted. “What a shitty name. But aren’t you really curious if his face is just as shitty or maybe quite decent for a change?” Louis asked, hopping onto the counter and munching happily at the half-eaten pack of biscuits. They were Zayn’s and he hadn’t even been offered one.

“I am a bit. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna ask for a picture, though,” Zayn repeated. After a short moment of hesitation, he added, “He flirts with me sometimes. Or I think he does?”

Even though Louis wasn’t willing to give good life advices often—and he did have plenty of those, saved for a rainy day—and it was very possible that he would take it as an opportunity to make fun of Zayn even more, Zayn was still willing to get a second opinion. He was even more useless in such cases than Louis.

“Oh, he does?” a wicked grin appeared on Louis’ face.

He seemed awfully pleased with himself and Zayn wasn’t even sure why.

“I think so? And he mentioned going for a pint a few times. I think he’s getting more serious about it every time.”

“Well, at least one of you is thinking prospectively. Maybe there is still hope for that Neil guy. Did you flirt back?” Louis asked before scrunching his nose. “I hope you didn’t. You’re horrible at that.”

Zayn made an overly affronted noise. But he couldn’t really argue with that. Flirting usually scared people off when Zayn tried it. As Louis often said “if it wasn’t for that pretty face, he would never gotten laid”.

“So apparently Niall has an awful taste, because he’s still talking to me,” Zayn pointed out.

Louis’ eyebrows shot up at that and he slowly nodded with overdone appreciation, “I’m really impressed. Even I feel the urge to dump you sometimes. So basically you two are crushing on each other but you’re too scared to actually meet him?”

“There’s no crushing, Lou,” Zayn rolled his eyes. “We’re just texting or talking on the phone sometimes.”

“You’re _flirting_ via texts and phone calls, you mean.”

Well, Louis might had a point. But it didn’t change much. Zayn still wasn’t going for a pint or anything with Niall. The thing that was happening between them now was too nice and entertaining for Zayn to risk it.

“It’s just fun. Niall’s fun to talk to,” Zayn shrugged.

“Well, then meet up, find out if he’s also fun to look at and then maybe give him head. Or convince him to give you head.” Louis had a wistful look on his face.

Zayn only groaned and started mumbling obscenities at his friend. Not even remotely bothered, Louis hopped off the counter when the kettle started to whistle. He made two mugs of tea, pouring a generous amount of milk into one and putting three sugars into the other. As always he mumbled something about destroying a nice cuppa. Louis tended to just ignore people’s likings and habits when it came to tea, making it “the way it should be done”. However—as a display of affection—he stopped ignoring Zayn’s.

Luckily, Louis decided to drop the topic, telling Zayn about a coffee place he was working at instead. They were looking for another employee and since Louis had already charmed everyone there—including his boss—he offered to bring Zayn. So if everything would work out, Zayn might got a new job soon.

After a few more minutes, they moved to Zayn’s room, where Louis starfished on his not–that–big–bed. Zayn fit on it, lying partially on the remaining space and partially on his friend. Neither of them complained. While Zayn was trying to make himself comfortable—seriously, for such a small person, Louis was taking a lot of space—Louis turned on his laptop to choose a film. It was almost a Thursday evenings tradition at this point.

Eventually, Louis put on _Kingsman: The Secret Service_ , even though both of them had seen it a million times already. Zayn was happy with it, because that saved them all the arguing on what to watch. Besides, he didn’t have to pay much attention to the plot since he knew it by heart and his mind could freely wander. He started to think that Louis picked it on purpose.

Surprisingly—or maybe not at all—his thoughts wandered to Niall. His fingers were tingling to type out an answer to that last text Niall sent him. Eventually, he gave in, pretending he didn’t notice the eyeroll Louis aimed at him.

Zayn was completely aware of the… unusualness of this whole thing. He didn’t mind it though, he and Niall just happened to cross paths and it turned out to be nice enough for them to carry on with that relation. Zayn really tried not to put too much thought into it, like Louis did. Or at least, that was what he tried to tell himself.

Because maybe sometimes Zayn did try to imagine who was on the other end of the line, who was the owner of such voice. Maybe sometimes he considered agreeing to go for that pint, because there was no harm in that. Maybe sometimes he was longing for another text or call or whatever because hearing from Niall, seeing his name appear on his phone screen always made Zayn smile. Maybe sometimes he was thinking whether it was possible to develop a crush on somebody’s voice but he still refused to believe it.

Because knowing Zayn’s luck it would turn into a huge disaster.

***

For the first time in months Zayn had a free weekend and it felt very… odd. He spent half of the Saturday morning wandering around the—quite small after all—flat, not knowing what to do with himself. Louis tried to trick him into going out with him in the evening, but Zayn strongly declined. Showering and dressing up into something more fancy than a pair of sweats and a hoodie seemed like a lot of effort that he was not willing to make. By the time the evening came, Zayn would either be be asleep or too caught up in the plot of _Stranger Things_ to pay attention to anything else. Weirdly enough, Louis gave up on trying to convince him. He said that maybe Zayn did deserve a nice night-in but he called Zayn a knob anyhow. Zayn could lived with that.

Just like he had planned, Zayn gathered all the necessities—like the big pot of tea, snacks and sweets and a laptop charger—before burying himself under the covers. He decided not to jump into another universe straight away. Instead, he pulled out his phone from under the pillow and dialled his mum’s number. A bit anxious, Zayn waited for her to pick up, gnawing at his bottom lip. He didn’t wanted to tell her about the whole job thing before. He knew how worried she’d got. But now Zayn had some good news about the possibility of working with Louis to add.

The talk turned out to be even harder than Zayn originally thought. But not because his mum got mad or anything like that. It was quite the opposite. With a tremble in her voice, she said that she was happy and proud Zayn quit the job and even went as far as calling Zayn’s former boss a _wanker._ Zayn almost laughed out loud, hearing such word come out from his mum’s mouth. But then—not being able to hide worry from her voice—she asked if Zayn needed any help from them, financial or not. And that was the part that made Zayn feel uneasy. He was extremely aware of how expensive and challenging for his parents it was to let him move and study in the capital. However, his parents had never complained or tried to talk him out of the idea, they were always nothing but supportive and loving. And Zayn was incredibly grateful for that, yet he couldn’t get rid of that nagging feeling of guilt that sometimes hunted him. That’s why he tried to become self-sufficient as soon at it was possible, despite how hard it sometimes was.

Trying to sound as convincing as possible, he thanked his mum telling her that he was completely fine. His mum eventually dropped the topic with a heavy sigh, making Zayn promise to call home if anything were to happen. They chatted for a few more minutes before she had to go. After exchanging the “I love you’s”, Zayn hung up, rubbing tiredly at his face. As always, the talk with his mum made him feel homesick, but on the other hand it took some weight off his chest.

Rethinking his life choices and letting the guilt eat him alive wasn’t how Zayn wanted to spent the rest of the afternoon. Instead, he made himself as comfortable as possible—since he wasn’t planning on leaving the bed in the nearest future—and started the first episode, cupping a warm mug of tea in his hands. A content sigh escaped his mouth. How could Louis exchange things like that for a loud pub with yelling people, stiffy air and bad music, Zayn had no idea. Maybe he would get worried about sounding like a pensioner even to his own ears while being only 22, but he was too content to give it a second thought.

About 4 episodes later, Zayn’s idyllic reality was interrupted. Stopping the film, he squinted, scanning the darkness of his room. It took Zayn a moment to realise that the buzzing sound he’d heard was just his phone vibrating. Blindly exploring his bed, he had finally found it, tangled into the duvet. Zayn was positive it was Louis calling to try and drag him out once again. After a quick glance at the screen he furrowed his brows, realising that he hadn’t guessed correctly.

“Hello?” the voice on the other side sounded unsure and Zayn laughed at that.

“Hello, Niall. What’s up?”

Niall let out a small, happy–sounding noise, “oh, hi Zayn! It’s nice to hear your voice. You have a very nice voice.”

“You called me just to tell me that?” Zayn teased, even though his cheeks were burning a bit.

“Maybe? I’m not really sure,” Niall giggled, probably at himself. “I wanted to call Harry. I don’t know why I keep messing them numbers up. I’ve renamed you! You’re Pathfinder now. Fucking splendid thing. The Pathfinder. Did you know they wrapped it in airbags and it just… bounced around Mars for a while. Space bubble wrap.”

Another giggle escaped Niall’s mouth and Zayn tried not to be completely endeared by that sound. He shook his head, trying to focus on Niall’s—slightly slurred—voice.

“Niall?”

“Yes, Zayn?”

“Are you drunk?” Zayn finally asked with a chuckle.

“I’m fucking wasted, Zayn,” Niall tried to whisper but failed by doing it way too loud. “I was at the bar with Harry. But then he went somewhere. A horrible friend he is. And I have no fucking clue where I am.”

Despite his words, Niall bursted into laughter, like he was doing great. Zayn only sighed.

“Did you try to call him?” Zayn asked.

“Actually I did! He didn’t answer. And I tried again and—surprise surprise!—you picked up. Do you have Harry’s phone?” Niall asked curiously, “Is he somewhere there?”

“No, Niall, sorry,” Zayn bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. “I don’t even know him.”

“Oooh, you should definitely meet him, he’s great,” Niall assured.

“I don’t doubt that,” Zayn said, before he asked. “Where are you? What’s the bar called?”

There was some rustling, mumbling and another inaudible noises Zayn could made nothing of. Niall hummed, trying to remember it.

“Achoo?” He guessed, but then added with a giggle. “No, not that. That would be an awful name for a bar. Um—Oh, it’s Cahoots!”

Zayn laughed and said—to Niall’s unspoken delight, “You almost got it right.”

The name Niall just said seemed oddly familiar to Zayn. Feeling the anxiety growing in him, he gnawed at his lip. Said bar was about a three-minute walk from his flat and he could easily just go there and help Niall. And that was what frightened him. It was like crossing the line that nobody had really drawn but Zayn was uncomfortably aware of its presence. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. On the other hand, Niall was drunk and alone in an unknown place. What if something would happened to him? What if he’d get lost? Or got hit by a car? Or anything equally bad, just because Zayn was scared to face him?

“Niall?” he finally asked, clearing his throat to get rid of the tremble in his voice. A non-committal hum was the only answer he had gotten. Slowly untangling himself from under the covers, he continued. “You’re still at that bar, yeah?” Another hum, this time more confirmative one. “So stay there for a few more minutes, OK? It’s close to my place, I can help you get back home, yeah?”

“You’d do that? That would be aces, Zaynie. Sleeping here would be awful, probably.”

“I can imagine that,” Zayn huffed out a laugh. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

They hung up, Niall saying he’d go to the bathroom and then wait for Zayn outside the building.

For a brief second, Zayn just sat on his bed, glancing at his phone disbelievingly. Trying to ignore his anxiety, he got up. Niall needed him so he was ready to help.

Stepping out of his sweatpants, Zayn pulled on a pair of black skinnies and put on his leather jacket over a worn-out hoodie. Trying to convince himself that it was dark outside and nobody would notice the bad condition of his hair and the rest of him, he walked out of his room. Pocketing his phone and taking the keys, he left the apartment and stepped into the chilly night. His hands were shaking, so he just stuffed them into the pockets of his jacket and quickened his pace so he wouldn’t change his mind. Despite his good intentions, Zayn was hyper-aware of what was going to happen in a few minutes.

He wasn’t _scared_. It was just that all of those ridiculous things about Niall being an old man or a psycho or a hideous and awful human being got back to him all of sudden. He was going to kill Louis on the nearest occasion. Although a hint—a very large hint—of excitement was making his heart skip and his mouth quirk up in a small smile. Zayn tried to hold on to that. It was far more enjoyable than worrying. Besides, he had a good feeling about Niall. And Niall was drunk off his ass anyway, so he wouldn’t remember a potential disaster.

The closer Zayn got to his destination, the more noises he heard. When he rounded the corner, he realised that there were quite a few people were loitering outside the bar. Reaching to his pocket, Zayn took out his phone. His thumb hovered over Niall’s name for a split second. Resisting the urge to run back to his flat, Zayn tapped the number, bringing the phone closer to his ear.

“Hiya, Zee!” Niall cheered the moment he picked up.

A smile bloomed on Zayn’s face as he tried to ignore the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Hi, Niall. Are you outside? Where exactly?”

“Um,” Niall wondered. “I’ve just walked out. And I took a few steps to the left. How will I recognise you? I’m gonna wave my arm. I’m waving. People are looking at me like I’m an idiot. Or a stupid. You wouldn’t look at me like I’m a stupid idiot, wudja?”

Niall’s voice sounded truly concerned, so Zayn quickly assured him that he wouldn’t. Looking towards the bar that was only two building away from where he was now, Zayn had spotted an arm swinging wildly above other people’s heads. He still didn’t see the rest of the arm owner.

“I can see your arm,” Zayn laughed. The hand now made a peace sign.

“Where are you then? Who are you?” Niall asked. “Are you the blond on my right? Or the long-haired one on the bench? I really hope you’re not the one wearing a Real Madrid hoodie, cause we’d have to end that relationship. Oh, there’s a hottie in a leather jacket, maybe that’s you.”

Zayn had not answered that. He was too busy staring at the guy he saw in front of him. A guy with incredibly ruffled hair, shaved and dark at the sides, fluffy and bleached at the front. A guy with big eyes in which the night lights reflected, even bigger smile on his face and dark cheeks. A guy with an arm stretched out high above his head.

For a few seconds they were just staring at each other. Niall’s grin slowly faded, as his eyes widened. Slowly, he put his hand down.

“Holy fuck, you are the hottie in a leather jacket,” he mumbled.

Zayn heard his words both live and via the phone that was still pressed to his ear. He put it down and Niall followed his lead. A small, awkward laugh escaped Zayn’s mouth.

“Um— hi?”

Running a hand through his hair, Zayn remembered that he wasn’t in the most presentable state. Since the very beginning, he knew that Louis was an idiot and that an owner of such voice as Niall’s must be decent. But it turned out that Niall was gorgeous, even in the dimmed light coming from the bar. His smile made Zayn’s knees weak and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“I mean—Hi.” Niall said, grin making its way back on his face. “You’re basically my hero, rescuing me all the time. Although I’d never assume my guardian angel dresses up like a hot biker rockstar.”

Zayn laughed, hoping that the blush he knew was on his cheeks, wasn’t visible at least.

“You’re not making much sense, ya know?” Zayn said.

“That might be because I’ve had like seven pints before Harry ditched me. And then maybe two or three with Ed. Who also left,” Niall made an ugly crying face and said in an exaggerated whine, “everybody’s leaving me!”

Biting at his lower lip, Zayn pushed his hands further into his pockets to fight the urge to ruffle Niall’s fringe. He wondered whether it was as fluffy as it seemed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Zayn said instead.

The smile Niall gave him as an answer was blinding, even in the relative darkness of the night. Zayn felt like pinching himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Thanks, Zaynie. Not only for that, but like for saving my ass all the time,” Niall run his fingers through his hair, ruffling it even more.

Zayn only waved a hand at that. He had to hold himself back to not say anything stupid or embarrassing. A lot of such things were floating in his mind.

“Shall we go, then?” Zayn asked, pointing his thumb at his right. “You’re living at D’Arblay right?”

“Wait, how do you know?” Niall squinted his eyes at Zayn. “You’re stalking me? Are you a villain guardian angel?”

“I’m not a villain, I’m a superhero, I thought we’ve settled that?” Zayn raised an eyebrow and Niall cackled. “You’ve told me when you asked me for directions the first time we ever talked.”

Scratching at his chin, Niall looked somewhere above Zayn’s left shoulder, thinking.

“OK, yeah. You might be right.”

“You might want to keep your personal info to yourself the next time. And speaking of privacy, lemme—a total stranger—walk you home, yeah?”

Niall laughed loudly, his head thrown back as he did that. What Zayn said wasn’t that funny, but he still felt proud of getting such reaction from Niall.

“Sure, let’s go,” Niall managed to say eventually.

Slowly, they started walking down the street, Niall swaying slightly in the process. Zayn wasn’t sure whether it was because of the alcohol or if he was doing it on purpose. From time to time Zayn was throwing a quick glance to his left side, to Niall. In most cases, he had to look away just as quickly because Niall was already looking at him.

“I haven’t ruined any plans of yours, have I?” Niall asked at some point.

“Um,” Zayn hesitated. Should he tell the truth or maybe lie to seem cooler than he really was? Niall already knew how much of an old man he was when it came to spending weekends, so what was the point in lying?

“Did I wake you up?” Niall teased with a grin, trying to lightly nudge Zayn’s side but he stumbled. He’d fall down if it wasn’t for Zayn wrapping his arm around Niall’s middle to steady him.

“See? That’s what you get for making fun of me,” Zayn laughed, feeling the heat radiating from where Niall was pressed to his side.

“If I’m getting a cuddle every time, I will make fun of you constantly,” Niall waggled his eyebrows. It was probably supposed to look seductive, but it wasn’t even close. Although, Zayn still felt his cheeks burning.

“It’s not a cuddle,” Zayn answered, making no effort to move away from Niall or to take his arm. “I’m just saving your drunk ass from falling. And I wasn’t asleep, you wanker. Was just… watching a TV series.”

“Oh nice, which one?” Niall asked curiously.

From this close, Zayn finally realised that his eyes were really bright and very pretty. Zayn missed a bit, staring into them for a bit too long, distracted by the way the night lights were reflecting in them.

“Um. _Stranger Things_?” he blurted out eventually.

“Fuck no. Not that one,” Niall whined. “So like, it was everywhere and everyone was talking about it, yeah? So I wanted to give it a go, yeah? I was hiding behind me pillow the whole fucking time. Nearly pissed meself and had to sleep with me light on. Fucking scary, that thing. Never watching it again.”

“Oh come on, it’s not that scary! And the characters and the climate are sick, mate! A small-town deadly mystery is always fun,” Zayn laughed.

“You have a weird fucking idea of fun,” Niall scrunched his nose. “And you’re not gonna convince me. I’m not watching it ever again. Not alone, at least. Fucking monsters.”

“Maybe I’ll let you watch it with me, so you can hold my hand when you’re scared. If you stop making fun of me,” Zayn chuckled, a bit nervously when he realised what he said.

He wasn’t meaning this to sound like an invitation. Or was he? At this point he wasn’t sure of anything, his brain didn’t seem to be cooperating with his mouth. The only thing Zayn wanted was for Niall not to remember any of that tomorrow. Zayn would remember. And that would hunt him forever.

“Sounds like a plan,” Niall grinned. “Though I should warn you that I’m extremely clingy when I’m scared. Like a koala. But less fluffy. And I curse more than a koala.”

“How could you know?” Zayn pointed out, trying not to laugh. “Maybe they actually curse all the time but you have no idea, because you can’t understand them?”

Zayn had no idea what was he talking about. It was something funny apparently, because Niall started laughing, the sound loud and clear in the quiet night. The streets weren’t empty—they rarely were in this neighbourhood—but it was empty enough for Niall’s voice to echo in the street. Zayn looked at Niall’s happy face—his head thrown back, his hands clutching his belly—and tried not to be helplessly endeared. He failed, though.

Zayn hadn’t—or maybe didn’t want to—realise that they were just one turn away from Niall’s street. They were still walking side by side, Zayn’s arm resting comfortably around Niall’s slim waist, none of them commenting on it. Their pace was slow and Zayn tried not to think much into it. However, the distance between the bar and Niall’s street was a very short one so the end of their walk was getting closer with every step. Ir made Zayn more sad that it should.

“Where exactly do you live?” Zayn asked, showing the rest of his thoughts to the back of his mind.

“Oi, you warned me before! Sharing personal info with strangers is bad!” Niall waggled a finger at him, almost poking Zayn in the eye.

“Well, I can just leave you here, then. We’re at D’Arblay.” Zayn raised an eyebrow at Niall.

Niall’s face dropped, his eyes widened in a slightly horrified expression as he looked around. Zayn couldn’t stop a laugh.

“Noooo, please, you can’t leave me! I still have no idea where I am,” Niall gripped at Zayn’s arm, the one that wasn’t wrapped around his waist. “Besides, you’re not a stranger, I mean you’ve heard me having a panic attack and seen me drunk. It’s basically me at my highest, we’re besties by now.”

After Niall had finally given his address away, it only took a minute to get to the right building. They stopped by the door to Niall’s block of flats. Niall was grinning widely and so did Zayn, although he really didn’t want to say goodbye. Niall’s laugh and drunken way of being was a very good entertainment. Or maybe that was simply just Niall.

“How can you not be tired of me being so needy all the time?” Niall asked, looking as embarrassed as his drunk self let him be.

“Well… I don’t have an extremely exciting life, so you’re usually not interrupting anything. And you’re not as needy as you think,” Zayn rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m glad. I mean not really. And I’m also surprised how can you lead an unexciting life looking like this,” Niall said.

Zayn hadn’t really understood what he meant before Niall gave him a—rather obvious—look and continued.

“You should be a model. Or work somewhere else where you could show off your beauty. Or at least hook up with everybody you wish all the time. Unless you don’t want to which is cool.” Niall babbled, running a hand through his hair. Zayn realised he did that quite a lot, messing his already messy hair even more. “I knew earlier that you’re very cool but what I didn’t know was that you’re also hot. It’s unfair. Why were you keeping things from me, Zayn?”

The blush that was present on Zayn’s cheeks from the very beginning probably, was now probably beet-red now, he felt like his face was on fire. Zayn wouldn’t be surprised if the only thing remaining after him after that talk would be a pile of ashes, because he was about to burst into flames. And it was all Niall’s fault.

A nervous chuckle escaped Zayn’s mouth. It sounded more like choking to his own ears.

“I didn’t intend to?” he asked rather than answered. “I don’t tend to inform new people that some think I look good. That would be vain and stupid, mate.”

“Well, you could and nobody should blame you,” Niall did that eyebrows-wiggling thing again and Zayn giggled.

Zayn should probably go before he did something stupid, like trying to run his fingers through Niall’s fringe or try to kiss him.

Rummaging through his pockets, Niall took out his keys. He leaned forward to put it in the lock but he had miscalculated the distance. He almost fell face-first on the door, but Zayn saved him—again.

As he did earlier, Zayn wrapped his arms around Niall’s waist and pulled the other boy back. Niall stumbled, falling fully into Zayn’s embrace, nearly causing them both to fall. However, when he turned around in Zayn’s arms, he had a happy smile on his face.

“Hi,” he said dumbly.

“Hi,” Zayn answered automatically, his eyes on Niall’s as he wondered if that guy ever stopped smiling and also how bad it hypothetically would be if he hypothetically kissed Niall right now.

He didn’t, though. Partially because it would take Zayn ages to muster up his courage. And partially because there was someone exiting the building and they both had been hit by the opening door.

The movement made them step back, Zayn pulling at Niall’s arm to help him regain his balance, before taking his hands back. They both looked at the cause of their startle.

There was a tall, a bit tipsy guy with soft face and long strands of curly hair who stood in the entrance to the building. Seeing the two of them, his eyes widened.

“Niall!” he said, voice slow despite the excitement in his eyes. “I was about to get you!”

“Oh so now you’re worried about me, dickhead?” Niall pointed an accusing finger at the other guy. “You left me!”

The curly one pouted at that, looking very concerned and serious.

“I know, I’m sorry, but I’ve told you I’m going home and that I can pick you up later. And you said you’re good with Ed.”

“I said that only to make you jealous and stay with me,” Niall said at if it was the most obvious thing.

Dumbfounded, Zayn just stood there observing them and awkwardly stepping from one food to another. From what he guessed, the curly one was Harry, Niall’s friend and the owner of the right phone number. Zayn wasn’t sure whether he should say something or just quietly go away so he wouldn’t interrupt that little—a bit odd—argument. Before he decided what to do, Niall spoke again.

“Lucky me I had Zayn to rescue me again,” Niall folded his hands on his chest. Or at least he tried to, succeeding only at his third attempt. He turned around swaying just a bit and his eyes landed on Zayn. A small smile appeared back on his face as he said, “Hi, Zayn.”

Zayn only snorted at him, biting at his lower lip to contain a grin. Out of the corner of his eye, he realised that Harry’s attention focused completely on him. Zayn tried to decide whether he liked that or not. A bit nervously, he rubbed at his neck, his eyes skipping from Niall—who looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes and a lazy smile—to Harry whose face was rather confused and a bit wary.

“Hi,” the long-haired man said finally, extending an arm to Zayn. “I’m Harry. Nice to meet you.”

His voice was as slow as his movements, but the previous cautiousness had disappeared and Harry had a friendly smile on his face.

“Nice to meet you, too. I’m Zayn, I’m—Me and Niall—” Zayn wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.

“I know, Niall’s been talking about you,” Harry interrupted.

Once again, before Zayn could even process those words properly, Niall spoke up.

“I think—” he started, swaying slightly. Zayn would probably hold him to keep him upright, but he hesitated with Harry now with them. “I think I should call it a night, lads. ‘M so fucking tired. And a teeny tiny bit drunk.”

“Oh really? I couldn’t tell, Niall.” Zayn chuckled.

The Irishman tried to look offended but the huge grin he had on his face kind of ruined the impression. He jabbed Zayn on the chest a few times with his finger, probably as some kind of a warning. The jabbing rather quickly turned into Niall’s big palm resting flat on Zayn’s chest. Even through the jacket Zayn felt how warm it was and how quickly his heart was beating. Niall was probably feeling the latter too.

“Also. I hope I won’t remember how much I’ve embarrassed myself, but I think there was quite a lot of that,” Niall said, focusing his eyes on Zayn’s face. “Please don’t remind me of any of it, will ya?”

“It’s not that bad, mate, you’re good,” Zayn assured him. “But I won’t.”

While Harry was trying to fit the key into the lock so he and Niall could go back to the flat, Niall shifted closer to Zayn. His arms sneaked around Zayn’s waist, halfway under the jacket he was wearing, resting loosely at his lower back. Niall rested his head on Zayn’s shoulder, his cold nose pressing into the side of Zayn’s neck. The small giggle Niall let out tickled at Zayn’s exposed skin and the latter had to fight a shiver.

“Thanks, Zaynie,” Niall said, sounding a bit sleepy. “For everything. It was nice to finally see you.”

Feeling a bit petrified, Zayn squeezed at Niall’s sides, not even sure when his hands found their way to rest there.

“No need to thank me. I’m glad we’ve met, too,” he answered eventually.

“You smell nice. Like… warmness,” Niall mumbled into Zayn’s collarbone. “You are nice.”

This time Zayn couldn’t do anything about a shiver running down his spine. He was feeling warm all over and his face must have been beet-red by now. For a second he hid his face in Niall’s hair and let out a nervous chuckle, trying to compose himself and snap out of that little haze he had fallen into.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep on me, Niall,” he said, gently—and rather reluctantly—pushing Niall away. “I can assure you your bed will be more comfortable.”

Niall leaned back slowly and unwillingly, looking like he was about two seconds from drifting off. Blinking slowly, he was staring at Zayn with a drowsy smile, red cheeks and messy hair and he was the most adorable sight Zayn had ever seen. Even though he was bottled.

Zayn wanted to kiss him.

Fortunately, he thought better of it, taking a step back.

“You’ll be fine from now, yeah? Harry will tuck you in, OK?” Zayn asked, throwing a quick glance at Harry. He was standing at the entrance to the building, holding the door open and watched them from there. A smile appeared on his face as an answer to Zayn’s question even though it wasn’t really aimed at him. Zayn smiled back, letting go of Niall who mumbled an “OK” under his breath and walked towards Harry, shuffling his feet. Before he disappeared inside the staircase, he turned around.

“Bye, Zaynie!” Niall waved at him and sent a loud kiss his way.

“Bye, Niall,” Zayn answered a bit too late to already closed door, feeling incredibly stupid.

***

When Zayn woke up the next morning it was already past noon. Not that it was something unusual considering his sleeping habits. However, last night he got back home around 1.30AM and he couldn’t fall asleep for a long time after that. He tried to watch something but his thoughts kept running towards Niall. His eyes, his smile, his breath on Zayn’s neck. It was really distracting and the more Zayn tried to get rid of those thoughts, the more of them appeared. So Zayn gave up on the films, took a shower and went to sleep. Or tried to, because he ended up just rolling in his bed for long hours.

Zayn didn’t understand. He didn’t understand his own reactions and the sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn’t know why did he ignore the call from Niall he got around 1 o’clock and pressed his face into the pillow and pretended he was asleep as if Niall could tell what he was doing.

As it turned out, he could be very persuasive to himself, because he eventually did fall asleep and woke up an hour later. With a loud groan, Zayn rolled out of his bed. It was weird, he hadn’t have any alcohol yesterday and yet he felt dizzy and his legs were almost giving up under him. Shambling, Zayn left his bedroom and walked towards the kitchen. He gladly noticed that Nate wasn’t at home. About four days had passed since he had seen his flatmate the last time, but Zayn didn’t really care. Such things happened previously, but eventually Nate was always coming back. Like a boomerang, no matter how much you wanted to get rid of it.

Putting the kettle on, Zayn considered whether he was in the mood for making breakfast. Or lunch, he corrected himself after glancing at the microwave timer. Unsurprisingly, Zayn decided against making a meal for himself. Rummaging through the cupboards, he found a pack of chocolate chip cookies he’d bought a few days ago. They would do just fine.

With a pack of goodies in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other, he went back to his room. Taking his phone in his hands, Zayn fumbled with it for a bit, not waking up the screen. The blinking notification diode was almost hypnotising when Zayn stared at it. It took him half of the cookie pack and two thirds of of his coffee to finally unlock the phone.

There were just two unanswered calls—one from Niall and the second from Louis, who called Zayn just a few minutes ago. For a moment Zayn ignored them both and went to check his messages. There were just two from Niall.

From: **Niall** **  
**_hi I called ya but you’re probably still asleep aha_  
just wanted to thank you again . and apologise for all the potential weird shit i was doing . probably you had plenty of that lol hope i didn’t scared ya away aha ;)  
Sunday, 1:21PM

From: **Niall** **  
**_don’t remember much tbh but i do remember complimenting you . just so you know - i’m not taking this back_  
Sunday, 1:27PM

 

Calmly, Zayn put his mug and the phone away. Instead of answering, he wrapped himself in the duvet once again, hiding his head under it as well. It had became his new way of coping—or well, not really coping—with things.

***

From: **Me**  
_hey mate sorry for not answering earlier. no need to thank me and don’t worry. the weird shit wasn’t that embarrassing ;)_  
Monday, 8:25AM

From: **Niall**  
_not sure if i can trust you or if you’re just going to use everything against me when needed but m glad to hear that lol_  
Monday, 8:29AM

From: **Me**  
_make sure i won’t need that blackmail material then ;p_  
Monday, 8:35AM

From: **Niall**  
_I FUCKING KNEW IT !! you’re a real villain after all_  
Monday, 8:36AM

From: **Niall**  
_why are you up so early? ;pp_  
Monday, 8:36AM

From: **Me**  
_classes :c about to start it tbh talk to you later, ok?_  
Monday, 8:45AM

From: **Niall**  
_sure, good luck x_  
Monday, 8:46AM

From: **Niall**  
_why do people think it’s ok to blast music from one of them speakers at public ? theres a #squad at the tube with me *ugh emoji* if only they played something good_  
Monday, 4:14AM

From: **Me**  
_ugh those are the fucking worst, like. why won’t you wear earphones ffs_  
Monday, 9:23PM

From: **Niall**  
_exactly ! how was your day ?_  
Monday, 9:25PM

From: **Me**  
_had quite a busy one tbh got to the flat just a while ago and was greeted by nate and his mess. but it’s not that bad m going to ignore it and just go to sleep aha_  
Monday, 10:01PM

From: **Niall**  
_is sleeping your remedy for everything ? *crying emoji*_ _  
_ Monday, 10:05PM

From: **Niall**  
_how are you , sleeping beauty ?_  
Wednesday, 9:45AM

From: **Me**  
_been better, uni’s being a bitch lately. what about you?_  
Wednesday, 3:13PM

From: **Niall**  
_same i’m rethinking all my life choices . we really should go for that pint to chill someday_ _  
_ Wednesday, 3:32PM

From: **Me**  
_aha sure ;p_  
Wednesday, 4:29PM

From: **Niall**  
_oiii theyre talking about you at my lectures !! *crying emoji*_  
*attached: picture of the screen at a big lecture hall with an image of The Pathfinder*  
Thursday, 12:37PM

From: **Me**  
_*row of crying emojis*  you’re ridiculous_  
Thursday, 2:30PM

From: **Niall**  
_i’m hilarious just admit it_  
Thursday, 3:04PM

From: **Niall**  
_how are u doing?_  
Thursday, 7:18PM

From: **Niall**  
_you good?_  
Friday, 6:43PM

From: **Niall**  
_idk if u know but ignoring people is kinda rude . jk no pressure_ _  
_ Friday, 7:39PM

From: **Niall**  
_just worried if anything happened ? or if i did something ?_ _  
_ Friday, 7:43PM

From: **Niall**  
_ok i’m shutting up now , promise ;p_  
Friday, 7:46PM

***

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Louis yelled after third notification in a row, “Just reply to those damn texts and stop sulking. Jesus.”

“I’m not sulking,” Zayn said, his voice muffled from where his face was pressed into Louis’ mattrace.

“You totally are, you moron. You’re getting that moping and lovestruck-ness all over my sheets. I’ll make you clean them, it’s gross.”

“Fuck off, Lou.”

A loud groan escaped Louis’ mouth. Zayn couldn’t see him but soon enough he could feel his friend’s weight when Louis jumped at him. The air had been knocked out of Zayn’s lungs and he let out an offended noise. Turning his face to the side, Zayn noticed that Louis was reaching out to take his phone. To stop him, Zayn made another noise, this time aiming for a warning one. It didn’t change anything. Unbothered, Louis typed out the code and—for who knows which time—Zayn wondered when did he figured that out.

“Why are you being a dick, Zayno?” Louis asked, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“I’m not being a dick.”

“You totally are. That lad is nice and quite obvious if you’d ask me, with his attempts to woo you and you’re ignoring him. It _is_ a bit of a dick move.” Louis pointed out.

Zayn groaned. The thing that annoyed him the most about Louis was the fact that he usually was right and he knew it. For the past few days Zayn was a right arse to Niall and it made him feel awful. It wasn’t even his intention, he didn’t mean to make Niall worry in any way and he did enjoy talking to him. It just… happened.

“Gimme,” Zayn muttered with a sigh, taking his phone away from Louis.

From: **Me**  
_sorry mate. had a long week and been busy with trying to find a job and all that *ugh emoji* ’s not your fault, you havent done anyhing ;)_  
Friday, 7:59PM

“Well, lying isn’t exactly nice either, you know?” Louis said, reading the message over Zayn’s shoulder.

Technically, Zayn could be offended and say something about invading his privacy, but it was a lost cause with Louis. A bit earlier into their friendship, Zayn tried to introduce the idea of boundaries to his friend but he gave up quite quickly.

“Shut up, I’m not lying. I was looking for a job,” Zayn objected weakly.

“Yeah, for half an hour on Tuesday,” Louis pinched Zayn’s side. “The only thing you’ve been busy with was avoiding talking to Niall.”

As an answer, Zayn turned his head away, so he was facing the mattrace again.

“Why are you even doing that?” Louis ignored Zayn’s unwillingness to talk. “I thought he was a nice and pretty blond with fair eyes? Which is exactly your type?”

“I don’t have a type,” Zayn lifted his head slightly. “But yeah, he is.”

“So what’s the problem?” Louis rolled off Zayn, waving his arm in frustration. “Ask him out, charm him, suck his dick! Anything but… this” he gestured at Zayn with disgust on his face.

Slowly starting to lack air, Zayn rolled onto his back, hiding his face in his hands.

“It’s not that easy, Lou,” he said.

“I think it’s precisely that easy, idiot. That guy wanted to ask you out before he even saw you. And that is something.”

That was exactly the thing, Zayn thought. Niall wanted to ask him out earlier, was flirting with him earlier. He’d probably had some expectations, some idea of him that the real Zayn couldn’t probably meet.

“It’s a pity that the real-life Zayn isn’t as exciting and he’d be disappointed,” Zayn finally voiced his thoughts.

“That’s bulshit,” Louis snorted. “You just need some time to warm up to people and quickly enough you’re just as annoying and awful as you are to me.”

Zayn sent him a glare from between his fingers and his friend only laughed at him and ruffled his hair.

“Seriously, Zayn. You’re fine. Don’t overthink it and don’t run away from it before it even started properly, yeah?”

There it was. The disguised fondness and care that always was lurking behind Louis’ insults and jokes. Sometimes Zayn wondered how is that even possible that this loud, nasty meanie was also the most caring and warm person Zayn had even met and the best friend he could asked for. He would probably get punched if he said that out loud, though. So instead of saying anything, Zayn rolled onto his side, cuddling into Louis’ side.

“Thanks, Lou,” he mumbled into his friend’s chest and got a squeeze on his arm as an answer. After a few moments, Zayn cleared his throat and pulled away. “OK, that’s it. I believe I was promised alcohol and there isn’t any.”

“I’m not the one who spent fucking hours crying into a pillow, Zayn,” Louis sent him a glare. “You’re the only one to blame, Zayn.”

“Hush. And gimme beer.”

***

Zayn was worried. Worried to the point where the anxiety was making his stomach drop and all that jazz. He never meant to hurt Niall, that was the last thing he wanted. His behaviour came probably from not wanting to get hurt himself.

Meeting new people, talking with strangers, working on new relationships of any kind—that wasn’t something Zayn enjoyed and knew how to deal with. It always took him a good while to warm up to somebody. Somehow it was easier when there wasn’t any face-to-face interaction involved. Zayn really sucked at those. That was the source of his anxiety, probably. The difference between the Zayn Niall thought he knew and the real Zayn was quite significant. And if Niall won’t see the other Zayn, he wouldn’t be disappointed, right? Zayn didn’t want Niall to be disappointed in him. So he was running away. It might not be the wisest plan he could came up with, but it was partially working.

Only partially, though. Louis liked to point out and complain at how mopey and frustrated Zayn was lately.The thing that never failed to cheer him up were his chats with Niall and that was exactly the only thing he was denying himself.

Zayn tried not to think too much about it—with rather poor results. Especially today it was rather unnecessary to dwell on it since his day was already kind of nerve-wrecking due to the fact it was Zayn’s first day at the new job.

The changes always made him feel a bit uneasy, but it wasn’t that bad. To be honest, so far it was quite nice and easy and the fact that Louis was there with him was very helpful. His friend volunteered to break Zayn into the job and Zayn must had admit that he tried—and probably thought he was doing a splendid job. Explaining how the place worked, Louis showed him a bunch of equipment, calling it “useless shit”, then pointed at another saying “I’m still not sure how does it work” and then showed a small book of recipes into Zayn’s arms (“You don’t have to follow it that closely. I never do and haven’t heard anyone complaining”). With a comforting pat on the back, Louis said that Zayn would do just fine. He really hoped so.

The thing Zayn had realised from the start, was the fact that the coffee shop was definitely busier than the pizzeria, even in the mornings. From the beginning, he had plenty of opportunities to work on his coffee and tea brewing skills. It wasn’t that hard since there were machines for almost everything and Louis was always hovering behind him, pretending to be annoyed at Zayn’s questions but always willing to help. He was giving Zayn some hints now and then and even building up after every not-messed up order. When he wanted to, Louis could be a very supportive lad—even though he often patted Zayn on the head as he was a child, just to mess with him. And he was obviously much more competent than he seemed to be.

“Have you talked to Niall?”

The question was so unexpected that Zayn almost dropped the mug he was washing. Catching it before it could fell into the sink, he carefully put it down.. It has been a while since he nagged Zayn about that.

“Why are you asking about him all of sudden?”

“Just curious if you got your shit together,” Louis said. When Zayn looked over his shoulder, his friend was sitting on the counter and stared at him. His gaze was almost burning a hole in the back of Zayn’s neck. “Judging by your reaction, you did not.”

After “the First Wave” of customers as Louis called it, the time around noon was pretty peaceful. To be honest, Zayn preferred being busy with coffee orders, since then Louis didn’t have time to interrogate him.

“What reaction?” Zayn mumbled after a bit, not coming up with anything more to say.

“It’s nice. Us working together,” Louis said matter-of-factly, factitiously sweet smile on his face. “That way I can bug you until you finally grow some balls and stop being a coward.”

A groan came out from the back of Zayn’s throat. “Do you want me to quit this job?”

“Nah, you wouldn’t. Besides you know I’m right.”

“It’s not that easy, Lou, I’ve told you,” Zayn sighed, finally cutting off the water and drying his hands on the tea towel.

Louis jumped off the counter and walked towards the back room. While passing by Zayn, he pat his cheek and said. “Well, maybe. But it’s not as hard as you’re portraying it either.”

Zayn really hated when Louis was right. And he was quite sure that his friend’s strategy was going to pay off eventually. He kind of hoped it would. Sometimes he really needed someone to kick his ass when he was behaving irrationally. A little push was usually the best way to help get him out of his head and do whatever he needed to. Louis knew him too well.

 

After just a few days, Zayn find himself getting into the rhythm of the new workplace. Having Louis around had it’s merit in that, for sure. It was good to again have a routine and something to keep his mind occupied so he wouldn’t think about Niall as much.

Zayn wasn’t ignoring him completely, he wasn’t _that_ bad. Besides, he was a bit of an egoist, wanting to still have Niall in his life. The thing was—It wasn’t as easy and effortless, talking to Niall. It used to be different at the beginning. Everytime Zayn got a message, it took him ages to answer. Thinking too much into it, Zayn wasn’t able to simply type out the first thing that came to his mind, as he used to. The constant worry of doing something badly, of revealing himself made him unable to do that. So instead, he ended up giving Niall half-hearted answers an hour or two or a day later.

Niall had noticed it, of course he did. It was quite a surprise for Zayn, the fact that Niall get to know him so well and was able to see right through Zayn even via texts or the short phone talks they had had. He asked a few times if Zayn wele alright, if _they_ were alright. Giving him another set of excuses and vague explanations—being busy with uni or work or anything—Zayn pretended it was fine. Trying not to think that he had really wish that _them_ was more of a thing.

“You’ve been staring at that phone for about an hour.”

Louis said, sparing Zayn a quick glance over the small chalkboard he was scribbling on. It was for writing down the coffee of the day or a nice message or whatever else they came up with. Zayn usually took care of that, when he was bored. Today he was too busy trying to reply to Niall’s yesterday text that Louis handled it. Zayn only hoped it won’t be offensive in any way.

“Did you lost your ability to read, you need help?” Louis shifted closer, resting a hand on Zayn’s arm after he put the board back on the counter.

“Fuck off,” Zayn muttered, locking his phone and putting it away. It could wait a bit more. He would get to it. Eventually.

“Make yourself useful and bring milk, there’s no more left here,” Louis pushed, Zayn out of the still so he could sit there.

Not having anything else to do, Zayn went to the fridge in the back room and took two bottles of milk and carried them back to the main area. While he was crouching down, trying to put the milk away to the cupboard, he heard the quiet noise made by the little rings by the door. Zayn glanced that way but from his position he couldn’t see over the counter. Louis walked past him, messing with his hair.

“I need to take a wee, you’ll handle it, yeah?” he said and disappeared not even waiting for Zayn’s answer.

Waving him off, Zayn stood up and fixed his hair. Before he even properly straightened, he heard a laugh that made his heart stop and his knees almost gave up under him.

Niall wasn’t looking at him. The laugh he let out was caused by whatever was scribbled on the board placed on the counter. But there he was, standing just across the counter.

Zayn wondered if he still had time to run away. The urge to do so was very strong and he cursed Louis for not being here now, even though his friend couldn’t know with whom he had left Zayn. Despite his friend’s words, Zayn didn’t feel like he was able to handle it.

Rooted to the ground, Zayn was just staring at Niall, unable to move, to speak or even think properly. He wasn’t even sure why he was so petrified. It was irracional and he was very aware of that. That awareness didn’t help him much, though.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Niall looked up. When he spotted Zayn, his eyes at first widened in shock—they were indeed just as pretty as Zayn imagined them to be the other night. For a second or two, Niall just stared at him, surprised, but soon enough a smile bloomed on his face.

“Hello, Zaynie,” Niall said. “Today’s recommendation looks perfect, but you already have my number.”

Blinking in confusion, Zayn furrowed his brows since he didn’t have any idea what Niall was talking about. Instead of answering, Niall pointed his chin at the chalkboard. Slowly, not trusting his wobbly legs completely, Zayn walked towards the counter and turned the board around so he could see it. As soon as he saw what Louis had written there, he let out a loud groan.

There was a sticky figure with weird hair—Zayn guessed it was supposed to be him—and the text on the side said:

 _Today your barista is:_  
_1\. hella fucking gay_  
_2\. desperately single_ _  
_ For your drink today I recommend: you giving me your number

“I’m gonna fucking kill Louis with that as soon as he gets back here,” Zayn whined. He could feel a blush creeping up his face as he placed the board back on the counter. Face down. Running a hand through his hair, Zayn sent Niall a quick glance at Niall and said, “my friend wrote that. It’s— I’m not—”

With a grin, Niall raised one eyebrow suggestively, “Not hella gay or single?”

Zayn just chuckled at that, a nervous tone in it, “Well… That I am. I just wouldn’t call myself _desperately_ single, yano?”

Niall giggled. Literally giggled, he seemed to do that quite a lot as far as Zayn was concerned. It was very cute and unusual and Zayn tried not to be too endeared by it. He just wasn’t sure people did that in real life. Involuntarily, Zayn’s eyes skipped to where Niall was biting at his lower lip, still smiling.

“So…” Niall started, messing with a piece of hair on his temple. “How about going out for that pint? Or coffee, if you prefer?”

“Um—” Zayn looked down, his fingers fumbling with a piece of paper he somehow laid his hands on. “I’m not—”

“I promise I’m not that bad!” Niall interrupted him, looking determined. “I know I haven’t left anything close to a good impression on our first meeting and I’m sorry for that. But I really can behave myself, I was just pissed drunk. I’m not surprised you’ve been ignoring me, but—”

Even though Zayn started to shake his head and trying to say something halfway through Niall’s speech, the latter ignored him and kept talking.

“Niall,” he managed to interrupt him finally. “You’re good. You’ve left quite a fine impression. It’s just—”

Zayn sighed. He didn’t want to have this conversation. Especially not here and now. But on the other hand he didn’t want Niall to think it was because of something he did, because that was very far away from the reality.

“I’m just not that good with…,” Zayn waved his hand vaguely, not sure how to finish his sentence, “talking to people. And all this.”

A small sound escaped Niall’s mouth. The slightly nervous expression disappeared from his face and he looked at Zayn with a soft smile on his face.

“That’s fine. I get that. I’m sure you’re not that bad though, I’ve really—I’ve really enjoyed or phone talks and all that,” Niall said, scratching at his neck sheepishly. “I’d really like to keep them going but I’d also really like to hang with you in person sometime. But I’ll fuck off and drop the topic if you want me too.”

Zayn felt warm all over and it didn’t have anything to do with temperature. He hoped that the small laugh that escaped his lips didn’t sound too nervous. Something was fluttering in his stomach and he wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not. His heart was racing, his palms sweating but there was some excitement in it.

“I don’t  want you to fuck off,” Zayn said with a small chuckle.

“Good. That’s good. Amazing,” Niall repeated, his eyes crinkling with the force of his smile. “I’ll call you, alright? And we’ll set something up. And you better agree, cause I know how to find you now.”

“I will,” Zayn promised.

After that—without even ordering anything—Niall started to walk backwards towards the door, his eyes fixated on Zayn. Bumping into a table or two, he finally made it and giving Zayn a small wave, he left the coffee shop. Zayn waved back, a few seconds too late, but Niall still saw it through the window and his smile grew even bigger. With his hand still raised up, Zayn felt his lips spreading into a matching grin.

“What are you doing?”

The voice startled Zayn enough for him to jump up slightly. Spinning on his heel, he looked at Louis, who stood in the back door with a raised eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Zayn mumbled, scratching at the back of his neck. “Where were you?”

“I went to the loo but then Lottie called so I went to have a smoke, too,” he explained, but his expression was exactly the same as before. “Who was that guy?”

It was embarrassing how Zayn wanted to smile just at the very thought of Niall. Biting at his lower lip, Zayn turned away so Louis wouldn’t mock him forever.

“That was, um—,” he started, pretending he was extremely busy with messing with the napkin holder. “That was Niall.”

He didn’t even have to turn around to know how Louis face looked like. When his friend spoke, Zayn could _feel_ the tease in his voice.

“Oh, so _that_ was Niall?” Louis asked happily. “ _The_ Niall? The guy you have an embarrassing—but I can now say that quite understandable—crush on? Did he come to see you?”

“He didn’t. It was just a coincidence,” Zayn explained, still stuffing the napkins into the holder. “And I don’t have a crush.”

Louis walked up to him and hopped on the counter. He was grinning as if it was Christmas already. If it wasn’t for that warm, fluttery feeling that Niall’s visit left, Zayn would be annoyed with that. Yet somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Louis to fuck off.

“What did he say to you? You’re disgustingly happy, mate. I don’t know if I prefer when you’re mopey and depressed or all smiley like that,” Louis laughed, poking Zayn’s cheek.

Smacking his hand away, Zayn shrugged, “nothing, really. He thought I was ignoring him because he was being a dork the other night we met. And he asked me out again.”

“I hope you’d agreed this time, because I’ll have to smack you if not.”

“I did,” Zayn smiled. “He threatened that he knows where to find me now. He’s going to call me tonight so we’ll figure something out.”

“Aw, Zayno!” Louis cheered, making some heads turn in their direction and he cupped Zayn’s face, squishing it. “I’m proud of you! You deserve to finally get some.”

Shaking his face to get away from Lou’s grip, Zayn felt his cheeks hurt—both from the squishing and from all the smiling. He pushed Louis off the counter, smacking him with a tea towel for good measure.

Niall wanted to go out with him. Zayn agreed. And he felt really excited about it.

***

Niall wanted to go out with him. Zayn agreed. And he felt really anxious about it. So many things could go wrong and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face it.

Zayn was sitting cross-legged on his bed, clutching his phone in his left hand. Obviously, it wasn’t the mobile’s fault, but Zayn was still looking at it with anger. A part of him wanted to turn it off. However the other reminded him of the excitement and how happy a simple talk with Niall made him feel. So he left it on.

When he unlocked the phone, the first thing that popped up was his conversation with Niall. Zayn smiled, looking again at the last received text, just after Niall left the coffee shop.

From: **Niall**  
_i forgot to order a coffee, i had a purpose while walking in there ! s all your fault . you’re lucky you’re cute haha . call u later x_  
Thursday, 2:03PM

It was nice. Kind of reassuring to know that he wasn’t the only one to become a bit of a mess after he saw Niall.

Checking the time, Zayn wondered what exactly did “later” mean. Niall was speaking about the evening earlier in the coffee house. Wasn’t 8:21PM evening enough? Maybe Niall has changed his mind? Maybe his phone was broken? What if something happened, like what if Niall had been abducted by aliens?

With a sigh, Zayn placed his phone down on his bed. He really should stop overthinking everything. And also stop binge-watching _Stranger Things_ , probably. Making sure his phone wasn’t on silent, Zayn got up and walked out of the room. It was fine. He could wait. Not getting too far, Zayn entered the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. Why was he even stressed?

Before Zayn could give himself an answer for that question, the muffled sounds of Spider-man theme song started to play. A quiet curse escaped Zayn’s mouth as he run towards his room. Not even looking at the screen properly, Zayn picked up.

“Hello?” he said a bit breathless.

For a minute there was no answer and Zayn was worried his heartbeat was audible on the line, echoing in the silence.

“Am I… interrupting something?” Niall said eventually.

“No, I’m—” Zayn laughed, sitting back on the bed. “I’m not doing anything.”

“OK, cool. That’s good. Hi, Zayn.”

Niall’s smile was clearly hearable in his voice and now Zayn could actually put an image to it, knowing how smiling Niall looked like.

“How are you, how’s work?” Niall asked.

“It’s good, yeah. Busier than the previous one, but I’m working with Louis all the time so it’s not that bad. And the boss is a sweetheart for a change,” Zayn answered.

“Must be great, working for a decent human being for once,” Niall laughed. “Is Louis the short one? Kinda looking like a Peter Pan?”

Zayn chuckled, imagining Louis’ face after hearing such comment. A fury, that’s what he’ll become. “That’s the one.”

“Harry always whines he makes fun of his orders. Which is kinda understandable, because Harry and his coffee preferences are a joke sometimes.”

“Fair enough, but Louis’ can be very… straight-forward sometimes, to put it lightly. I have no idea how he’s getting away with damn everything, it’s unfair. But he’s not that bad,” Zayn said.

A small, agreeing noise was the only answer Niall get him before the line went silent again. Feeling a bit unsure again, Zayn started to pick at the loose thread sticking out of his duvet.

“So…,” Niall started eventually, clearing his throat. “I hope you haven’t changed your mind? About going out with me?”

Once again, he sounded quite nervous. Zayn felt it quite comforting, the fact that he wasn’t the only one feeling like that.

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered after a while. “Should I?”

“No, no! Hopefully not,” Niall said quickly. “It’s just… You know, despite everything I was saying… You don’t have to, if you don’t want, yeah? I don’t want to pressure you or anything.”

Pulling at the thread a bit harder, Zayn thought about it for a second. He could backed out, Niall was giving him a chance to do so. But did he really wanted it?

“It’s not that. It’s not that I don’t want to, Zayn started and laughed quietly. “I’m just really not that cool in real life.”

“Oh, OK. Stop with that self-deprecating shite. I refuse to believe that, because you seem very cool to me and I really enjoy talking to you, Zayn. So none of those, we can meet and then I’ll asses it myself later, OK?”

Finally letting go of that poor thread, Zayn bit at his lower lip to stop a smile, even though there was nobody to see him.

“We can try that,” he said.

“Great. What about this Saturday? Do you have any plans?” After getting a negative answer, Niall continued, “I know that one pub, it’s small but I really like it and they have live music every weekend? And I thought that would be a nice enough place for me to take you to.”

Even biting at his lip didn’t help much for stopping Zayn’s smile at this point, “Sounds great, yeah.”

“Fingers crossed you don’t know this place so I can be the one to show you something in your city,” Niall chuckled.

“Well, we’ll see.”

“I can pick you up if you want? And if you’d give me your address?”

“If that’s your subtle way to get my personal data to rob me or something—it’s not subtle and sadly you won’t find much in here,” Zayn sighed.

Everytime he managed to make Niall smile or laugh, Zayn felt that warm feeling of pride. He lay down on his bed, still smiling. There was no sight of all the anxiety he had been feeling just a few minutes ago. Maybe it was just Niall that had such an effect on him.

“Even if it was, you have my address as well, so you’d know where to find me. It would be quite stupid of me,” Niall said. “Will 7 o’clock be OK?”

“Sure. And I live at Warwick Street 21. Should I give you directions so you won’t get lost or…?” Zayn couldn’t help but to mock Niall.

“Thank you very fucking much, I’ll manage on my own,” Niall clearly wanted to pretend he was offended, but he couldn’t stop a laugh.

“So… This Saturday at 7?” Zayn asked to make sure.

Niall hummed in agreement and added after a short pause, “I’ll pick you up. Can’t wait to see you.”

Zayn was glad he was already laying down on his bed, not standing because Niall’s words made him feel all mushy and fluttery. Blush was spread on his cheeks probably since the very first day he had talked to Niall, it seemed like.

“Can’t wait to see you, too,” he answered, really meaning it.

***

“Should I wear a button-up?” Zayn asked, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder as he was going through the contents of his wardrobe.

“You should wear nothing. I bet Niall would appreciate it,” Louis answered, sounding a bit bored, munching on something on the other side.

“Shut up, you’re useless,” Zayn sighed.

Taking a black shirt out of the closet, Zayn looked at it for a few seconds before putting it back. It was way too formal. After all he was just going to the pub with a… Niall? Zayn still wasn’t sure how to call their relation. They were friends, probably. Zayn liked to think they were.

“I’m very helpful, just admit it. I’m keeping your mind busy so you won’t start panicking again,” Louis pointed out.

“I wasn’t panicking,” Zayn mumbled. “And I’m not doing it now, either.”

The only answer he had got was a loud cackle that escaped Louis mouth. It was great to have some support from a friend, really.

“Of course. You’re a mess and we both know this,” Louis said. “Since you’re ignored my first—very brilliant, I’d want to remind you—suggestion I won’t give you any more.”

“Good, die,” Zayn answered absentmindedly. “I’m just gonna wear jeans and a black t-shirt, we’re just going to a pub.”

An approving hum was what Zayn got for that.

“You’re right. It will be easier for Niall to undress you from a tee that from a button-up.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Louis,” Zayn groaned, trying to ignore the blush that was creeping up his neck, “will you stop this?”

“I could but it’s just too much fun.”

Well, at least he was honest. Quite brutal, but honest nonetheless. With a sigh, Zayn glanced at the phone screen to check the time. He cursed under his breath. He had just about fifteen minutes before Niall’s arrival. Louis was right—talking to him was quite a distraction. If Zayn would be late, he would had someone to blame it for.

“OK, I gotta go, Niall’s going to be here soon,” Zayn said, feeling a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Remember, you still have time to consider my idea,” Louis reminded. “Have fun, be safe and don’t do things I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t even do things you would, Lou,” Zayn snorted.

Sighing heavily, Louis said, “and that’s why you’re living a boring as fuck life, my friend.”

“Won’t hear me complaining,” Zayn shrugged.

“Actually, I hear you complaining all the time.”

“I’m hanging up, bye,” Zayn laughed and did as he said, throwing his phone in the general direction of his bed. He hit his target, luckily.

With slightly shaky hands, Zayn tried to quickly get dressed. At least he had dealt with his hair earlier. A haircut would make his life way easier, for sure. His hair was at this annoying state when it was too long for a quiff and was curling everywhere but too short for a bun or anything. His mum often said he looked like Aladdin. Louis often said he looked like a hobo and was lucky he was hot. Zayn decided to believe his mum.

After a second thought, Zayn found a red and black flannel and out it on. He knew himself enough to know he was going to be cold in just his leather jacket.

The next few minutes passed on frantic running around his room, trying to find his wallet. Eventually, Zayn realised it was in the inside pocket of his jacket which was exactly where Zayn wanted it to be—and also where he checked at least three times. Ready to go, Zayn plonked himself down onto his bed. He had few more minutes to worry about today’s evening.

Maybe Niall wouldn’t come? Zayn reached for his phone but there weren’t any texts waiting for him. There still was hope, though. Receiving such text would be incredibly disappointing, however maybe Zayn’s anxiety would go away at least. Despite all of Niall’s assurances, Zayn was still nervous that he wouldn’t meet his expectations. And he really, really didn’t want that.

A loud sound of the Spider-man theme song was what startled Zayn, enough to shake him out of his thoughts. For a second or two he was staring down at the phone vibrating in his hand, before he had finally picked up.

“Hello?”

“So I’m on the Warwick Street but I’ve been walking around looking for your number for about fifteen minutes and I think it’s time to admit my defeat,” Niall said, instead of a greeting.

Zayn laughed, reaching for his jacket, “I’m on my way. Where are you?”

A sushi restaurant turned out to be their landmark since that seemed to be the only thing Niall could recognise. From the very second Niall’s eyes spotted Zayn, a bright smile appeared on his face. Zayn felt his own lips curling up and he was somehow able to push the anxiety to a dark corner of his mind.

“I’m not good at first impressions, am I?” Niall said with a laughter in his voice.

“You could work on that, yeah,” Zayn agreed, but probably both of them knew he wasn’t being serious. “Do you know in which direction we should go now?”

Letting out another cackle, Niall nudged Zayn’s side with his elbow, “Shut up and follow me.”

“Probably the worst decision in my life, but OK,” Zayn sighed and got another nudge in the ribs.

They started to slowly walk down the road.

“I’ve studied Google Maps very closely, I know where we’re going, don’t worry.”

There was a proud smile on Niall’s face and Zayn’s cheeks were already hurting from smiling back so much.

“What a sacrifice, I’m flattered,” he answered. “Where did you live earlier? I’m guessing someplace smaller than London?”

Niall ignored the slightly teasing tone in Zayn’s voice and said, “Actually, yeah. I’m from Mullingar, it’s not so far from Dublin and it’s… about ten times smaller than here.”

“London is a challenge, isn’t it?”

“That city is crazy, mate. I’m gonna graduate and still get lost on me street,” Niall laughed, before turning his head to look at Zayn. “And you? Born here?”

“Nah, came from Bradford about… a bit over a year ago, I think. It does get better eventually.”

“Happy to hear that.”

The walk to the pub was not a long one, just like Niall promised. After not more than 5 minutes, they stopped in front of an old building with red door and a sign that said “The Old English Pub”. It looked quite inconspicuously from the outside but Zyn decided to trust Niall on that. Smiling at the blond, who held the door open for him, Zayn walked inside, grateful for the warmness that had welcomed him.

The literal warmness was provided by the fireplace in the far corner of the room and a small crowd that was already inside. But despite the simple wooden floor and cobbled walls, the whole place _felt_ warm and cosy.  There was a bunch of—not exactly fitting to each other—armchairs by the fire, small round tables were scattered across the room that was way bigger than the exterior could suggest. On the left from an entrance there was a makeshift platform with some music equipment in there. Almost every inch of the walls was covered in pictures, posters, graphics etc. There were even a guitar or two as well as a full bookshelf. It was _almost_ too much but somehow it looked just right. The lamps were hanging low, bathing everything in warm, dim light.

Zayn looked over his shoulder at Niall. The latter was watching him a bit warily, probably trying to seize Zayn’s reaction. Seeing that Zayn was looking at him, Niall bit at his lower lip and smiled a bit warily. A wave of something warm went through Zayn’s body. It seemed like Niall really wanted him to like the place.

“This place is great, Niall,” Zayn said, sending him a smile. “Never been here before but it seems great.”

In a split second the wary smile turned into a megawatt grin and the feeling in Zayn’s stomach only intensified. He just stood there gaping at Niall, not really able to do anything more.

“I’m really happy you like it,” Niall answered. “Didn’t expect that I’ll be the one to introduce you to new places in this area.”

“I don’t walk around pubs that much. Besides that one seems like it’s quite hard to miss from the outside.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s why I liked it from the start. It’s never too crowded and it feels kinda… homey,” Niall shrugged.

Quite unexpectedly, Zayn felt a soft touch on his lower back as he let Niall guide him further into the pub to find a table. They had settled on the one in the far corner of the room, next to the fireplace. Niall let Zayn take the seat closer to the fire and while Zayn was quite sure it was an accident, he was grateful for that nevertheless.

“I’ll go and grab us some drinks, OK? You’re fine with beer?” Niall asked.

Nodding, Zayn opened his mouth to say that he could buy it himself. However, before he could do that, Niall was already halfway to the counter.

Almost as quickly, he was back with two glasses, placing one of them in front of Zayn and he sat down on the other side of the table, shrugging off his jean jacket.

“How are you not cold in that?” Zayn asked, not even thinking about it.

A bit puzzled, Niall glanced at Zayn and then down at the white Eagles t-shirt he was wearing and then at his jacket hanged at the back of his chair. Then his eyes slid the leather jacket Zayn had still on. Niall grinned, giving a small shrug.

“Dunno, really. I must’ve got a very warm heart,” he answered with mock seriousness.

“That might be a problem, you should probably go see a doctor,” Zayn said.

In response, Niall literally sticked his tongue out at Zayn before taking a gulp from his glass. Trying not to be endeared by that childlike gesture—and probably failing—Zayn raised his pint as well.

After taking just a small sip of it, he had to fight off the urge to spit it back into the glass. Glancing down to examine it more closely, Zayn realised how dark it was and that the writing on the glass said “Guinness”. Groaning internally, he cursed Niall and his damn Irishness. There weren’t many types of beers that Zayn didn’t like, but Guinness was one that he genuinely despised. It tasted like mud and nobody could convince him otherwise. However, he didn't want to offend Niall's pride after just a few minutes. He could make it, just one glass and then he'll order a normal beer.

“How did you find this place?” Zayn asked, looking up at Niall instead of sending hateful glanced at his beer. His friend was a view much more enjoyable than a nasty pint of Guinness. And quite a distracting one, too.

“Accidentally, actually. I was visiting Harry a few months ago and one night he made me pick somewhere to go, so we just left his apartment and I entered the first pup I've noticed. Which was this one,” Niall shrugged, a soft smile on his face. “Harry said this place has “a soul”, but he's a fucking hipster. I just think it's relatively chill and they have cheap beer here.”

“A man of simple needs, you, right?” Zayn asked with a grin on his face.

“Exactly,” Niall said, raising his pint with a laugh.

“Um, so—,” Zayn hesitated, not sure how to keep the conversation going. He had never been too good at this. “Harry is your friend from university?”

“No, not really. I've known him for a few years now, I don't really remember how did we meet. At this point it feels like he has always been around. He started uni this year and I wanted to transfer to London anyway, so we had rent a flat together.”

Zayn nodded along to what Niall was saying, sometimes asking more questions and answering whatever Niall wanted to know about him. After just some time Zayn learned that Niall was studying Astronomy, because he had this weird fascination with outer space and there weren't many things he loved more. Maybe music was equally important to him and his other choice was sound engineering and he wasn’t really sure why did he pick one over another. For a good hour or so, they were exchanging small bits about their lives. With fondness in his eyes, Niall told Zayn about his godson Theo, so Zayn told Niall about his sisters and about his niece. They were talking about their families and friends, favourite places and music, and—however worried Zayn was earlier—they didn’t seem to run out of topics.

From the very beginning a smile didn’t want to leave Zayn’s face. And being able to look at Niall wasn’t helping to tone it down. Zayn finally had the opportunity to see him in a proper light, sitting just as far as the table between them made him. In the bar’s soft light, his fair skin looked almost golden, his blue eyes sparkling. His carefully styled hair was becoming more and more messy because Niall constantly run his hand through it. Every time Zayn spoke, Niall’s eyes focused on him as he cooked his head to the side. A blush was creeping up Zayn’s neck every time he had been given Niall’s complete attention.

Zayn needed to do something. Anything. He was buzzing with odd energy that made him want to cradle his fingers through Niall’s hair or reach for his hand or something equally stupid.

“Mate, either I have a problem with alcohol or you’re just an incredibly slow drinker,” Niall laughed.

Zayn glanced down at his—almost full—glass. The bitterness on his tongue was getting worse with every sip. He could as well go outside and lick the ground.

“Oh yeah. It’s not—,” Zayn scratched at his neck sheepishly. “You don’t have a problem or anything, it’s just—I’m not really a fan of… Guinness.”

He tried really hard to find a polite way to tell Niall that his favourite beverage and national pride tastes like shit and Zayn despised it with every cell in his body. Before he could come up with anything, Niall only shook his head with disapproval, but his eyes were laughing.

“Do you want me to finish it so you can order some beer you like?” Niall asked.

“Oh god, please,” Zayn let out a breathy laugh.

Sliding the glass over the table, Zayn offered it to Niall. When he reached to take it, he left his hand wrapped around the glass for a second so his fingers brushed against Zayn’s. His eyes were still focused on Zayn’s face when he finally took the glass and Zayn was quite certain that his blush reached the tip of his ears. Just after a second of touching Niall’s skin, Zayn felt the distracting tingling in his fingertips.

Getting up a bit too abruptly, Zayn pointed in the direction of the bar and mumbled something about buying a beer. He’d really appreciate some—bearably tasting—alcohol right now.

While standing in the short queue, Zayn’s eyes were running towards the blond on the other side of the room. He didn’t know what was happening. He shouldn’t had been feeling like that. They were just two mates who went out for a beer. That fluttery feeling in Zayn’s stomach had no rights to be hunting him like that. Eventually, he got back to the table with a glass of a nice IPA and lighter head. As soon as Niall saw him, he put down his phone and a happy smile appeared on his face. Zayn felt like he was floating. Hoping it would help, he took a big gulp from his glass.

It was going nice and smooth until some time later. Niall was in the middle of telling some story about an awesome street musician he’d seen lately when a group of three guys passed by their table. Zayn wouldn’t even spare them a second glance if one of them hadn’t stopped next to them, smiling at Niall.

“Nialler, mate!” the guy said cheerfully. “Should’ve known you’re going to be here!”

Interrupted in the middle of the sentence, Niall glanced to his left, confused. Soon enough recognition lit up his face. Zayn tried not to be jealous about how Niall’s attention wasn’t focused on him anymore. And he most certainly wasn’t jealous about the fact that Niall’s friend was way taller than him, the white henley he was wearing clinged unfairly to his muscled chest and that he had a face of a cherub.

“Shawnie, hi!” Niall said and got up to give his friend a hug. “What’s up?”

“Good, just went for a pint, maybe play something with the guys later. You should let us know you’ll be here as well!”

“Thanks, but I was already planning to go out with Zayn,” Niall sent Zayn a quick smile.

The jealousy wasn’t stinging that much after that.

Only after Niall’s comment, the Shawnie guy seemed to realise that Niall indeed wasn’t alone. His eyes widened slightly, but a smile appeared on his face.

“Oh, so _that’s_ Zayn,” he said.

Furrowing his brows, Zayn wondered what that was supposed to mean. He tried to get an answer from Niall, but the latter wasn’t looking at him, his eyes studying the contents of his glass.

“Sorry I’m being mean,” the big guy apologised, extending his arm, that Zayn shook. “I’m Shawn. It’s nice to meet you. But I’m going to flee now and leave you two alone. Sorry to interrupt.”

“It’s OK, go already, mate,” Niall patted at his friend bicep with a smile, before the latter wandered off with a small wave.

Zayn felt a pang of pang of guilt. Niall probably wanted to hang out with his friends and have fun rather than sit there with him. Probably, he was just too polite to admit it.

“You don’t—” Zayn started hesitantly. “You don’t want to hang out with your friends?”

“Nah, I’m good. I’m really happy with just you here,” Niall answered, sliding back onto his chair.

The little smile Niall had on his face while watching Zayn silently, didn’t help him to figure out what to say next. It also didn’t help to lessen the feeling of guilt.

“You sure? I mean you can go if you wan’t, I won’t be mad and—” Zayn blurted out eventually.

“Zayn.”

Before he could even finish the sentence or anything, he could feel Niall’s hand covering his own. Shutting his mouth even quicker than he had opened it, Zayn stared down at the tabletop and their hands. Niall’s hand was bigger than his and way warmer, sending little sparks up his arm and through his whole body. Focusing on steadying his racing heartbeat, Zayn looked up slowly, meeting Niall’s gaze.

“I’m not sure why you want to kick me out so badly,” Niall let out a small laugh, “but I really prefer staying here with you, if you’d let me. I don’t know about you but I had a great time with you. You’re much more interesting than you wanted me to believe, you know?”

Feeling hot all over, Zayn looked down again, not sure how to handle what he had just heard. He tried not to think too much into it, not to dwell on whether it meant anything that Niall had just brassed off his friend and that he said what he said. Although it felt like something. Zayn wished it was.

“Me too. Had a great time, like,” Zayn managed to say eventually, not lifting his head yet. He didn’t want to look at Niall when his face was probably beet-red by now.

Moving his thumb a bit, Niall stroked Zayn’s hand and the latter reluctantly looked at him again. As soon as he did it, a bright smile appeared on Niall’s face and he simply said, “Good.”

 

It was surprisingly easy to pick up the conversation they had paused a while earlier. As the evening went by, they had drained a few more pints, got to know much more things about each other and not even once checked the time. Niall eventually let go of Zayn’s hand but he placed his palm on the tabletop, close enough that Zayn still felt its warmness. It was grounding and at the same time made Zayn feel dazed most effectively than the pints he had.

The thing that had broke their private bubble was the slowly emptying pub. Surprised, Zayn pulled out his phone and made a surprised noise.

“It’s almost two in the morning,” he said. “I had no idea so much time had passed.

“I thought we’ve been here for two hours, not six. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess,” Niall said with a shrug.

“You’re turning into a philosopher after a few pints?” Zayn grinned, pointing his chin at Niall’s half-empty glass.

Niall snorted, taking another sip, “You should be happy that we haven’t reached the phase when I get passionate about politics or tell shitty jokes that only I can understand.”

They decided that they didn’t want to be the pricks that made bartenders stay at work longer than they should. And since the pub was almost empty already, they quickly dried their glasses and headed towards the door. Once again Niall’s hand was lightly touching the small of his back, guiding Zayn outside. They said goodbye to the bartenders before walking out into the cold night. Almost immediately, a shiver run through Zayn’s whole body.

“You cold?” Niall asked, looking concerned.

“Just a bit, I’ll be fine,” Zayn waved him off. “How can you not be?”

Niall pointed at his chest with his thumb and smiled proudly, “Warm heart, remember?” he giggled and added, wrapping his jacket tighter around himself, “No, but seriously, it’s fucking freezing, let’s go.”

Zayn nodded and they started walking down the relatively empty street. From time to time their shoulders bumped into each other. None of them complained or made a move to stop this.

The walk to Zayn’s street—where Niall led them first—wasn’t a long one. Eventually and quite reluctantly, Zayn slowed down, waving a hand towards the tenement he lived in.

“Here’s me,” he said with a smile and a small shrug.

“I walked past this building like ten times and yet I’ve managed to miss it earlier,” Niall shook his head at himself.

“It’s like the Leaky Cauldron. Not everyone notices it,” Zayn commented and immediately regretted it. Luckily, Niall seemed to appreciate the reference. Clearing his throat, Zayn added, “Now what I think about it, maybe I should be the one to walk you home? Won’t you get lost?”

Niall let out an exaggerated groan, throwing his head back. The movement exposed his long, fair neck and Zayn really tried not to stare.

“You’re not being funny anymore. Boring, more like,” Niall said with a sigh. “I’ll be fan _fucking_ tastic, thank you very much. And if not, I have you to save you, don’t I?”

“Yeah, you have. Unless you call me boring again.”

They laughed and then just stood there, a bit awkwardly, none of them really willing to go.

“Thank you,” Niall said eventually, looking shy all of sudden. “For agreeing to go out with me.”

“Well, thank you for inviting me,” Zayn scratched at the back of his neck. “I had a great time, you don’t need to thank me.”

Niall hummed, looking at Zayn wistfully. Finally, he stepped closer and cupped Zayn’s neck to press a quick kiss to his lips. Before the latter could even blink, Niall stood at his previous place, the only indication of what happened was a bright blush on his pale cheeks.

“I had a great time, too. Hope we can do that again, yeah?” Niall asked, taking a step back, his hand messing with his hair again.

Zayn’s hazy mind wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the evening or the kiss, but he edgerly nodded in agreement. He was absolutely fine with both.

“Goodnight, Zayn,” Niall waved and Zayn tried not to smile too big, but probably failed.

“Goodnight, Niall.”

 

Watching Niall disappear around the corner, Zayn’s cheeks hurting from smiling, head spinning and stomach clenching, Zayn thought that maybe it actually was a date.

***

When Zayn got back to his flat on the Saturday night—or Sunday morning to be precise—it took him a while to fall asleep. Which was a bit unusual, because drinking beer usually made him sleepy afterwards. Those four or five pints he had had didn’t seem to affect him at all. What did affect him was Niall. His voice, his eyes, his smile. The feeling of his chapped lips on Zayn’s own.

Zayn lay in his bed for a long time, staring at the dark ceiling. A big smile was still on his face when he had finally drifted off to sleep.

 

From: **Me**  
_did u got home safely last night? aha x_  
Sunday, 11:27AM

From: **Niall**  
_i did thank you v much . youre fast to ask this i couldve been dead already ! ;p_ _  
_ Sunday, 11:37AM

From: **Me**  
_well… you arent, are you? statistically speaking i couldve been, too_  
Sunday, 11:42AM

From: **Niall**  
_im glad none of us are and i suggest we stop talking about death on this pretty sunday morning . theres plenty of other topics_ _  
_ Sunday, 11:45AM

From: **Me**  
_name one then_  
Sunday, 11:45AM

From: **Niall**  
_whats your opinion on pineapple on pizza ?_  
Sunday, 11:47AM

From: **Me**  
_whoa mate. i’ve seen relationships ending, families breaking apart, wars declared because of that question. d’ya really want to ask this?_ _  
_ Sunday, 11:55AM

From: **Niall**  
_ok youre tight . that was a bit too fast from me . im sorry_  
Sunday, 11:57AM

From: **Niall**  
_*right . fucking autocorrect !_ _  
_ Sunday, 11:57AM

From: **Me**  
_i bet u are._  
Sunday, 11:57AM

From: **Niall**  
_i wouldnt risk out relationship for that ;p_ _  
_ Sunday, 11:58AM

From: **Me**  
_good :D:D :D_ _  
_ Sunday, 11:59AM

 

What was surprising for Zayn was the fact that the meeting didn’t really change anything. All of his worries seemed to be unfounded. Niall was just as lovely, there was no awkwardness in their talks. The only thing that did change was the fact that now Zayn spent more time thinking about how handsome Niall was or about what would it feel to kiss him again, properly this time. He was kind of waiting forward to their next meeting.

As it turned out later, Zayn didn’t have to wait for it too long. On a Wednesday morning Zayn barely made it to work on time, still feeling sleepy and tired. As a punishment, he had to listen to Louis singing “ _I Believe I Can Fly_ ” horribly off key for at least ten minutes straight. Banging his head on the counter, Zayn wondered why his friend was such a dick sometimes. At least he went to the back so his voice was a bit muffled.

There was a ring by the front door and Zayn lifted his head rapidly, pretending he wasn’t tired or close to strangling his friend. As soon as he glanced towards the entrance, his lips slowly spread in a smile.

Niall was already grinning at him, making his way to the counter. He seemed way too cheerful for 9 o’clock in the morning, if you’d ask Zayn, but he wasn’t going to complain. Usually such people annoyed him, but it was Niall. Everything was different when it came to Niall.

“Hello,” Niall said, sitting on the high stool on the other side of the counter. Folding his arms in front of him on the countertop, Niall leaned forward just a bit.

Today he was wearing a beige jumper that made his cheeks look even redder than usual and his hair lay softly on his forehead. He looked very soft and very cuddly, and Zayn felt very weak in the knees.

“Hi, Niall,” Zayn answered, probably a moment too late. Niall either didn’t notice it or simply didn’t comment on it. For a moment they were just staring at each other, matching smiles on their faces. Zayn was really thankful that Louis wasn’t there, because he would make fun of Zayn forever. The thought of Louis somehow shook Zayn out of his thoughts.

“Um, right. Did you come for a coffee this time or…?” Zayn asked with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I’d like a nice, big cup of black coffee with milk, please,” Niall said and added, “I might’ve hoped that I’d meet you here, but ya know, coffee’s a priority.”

“Never doubted that, mate.”

Turning around to turn the coffee maker, Zayn asked to keep the conversation going, “you don’t have any class today?”

“I was on my way there, actually. But just got a message that almost all of my classes were canceled. So I only have one lecture in like… four hours or so,” Niall said.

“On one hand I hate getting such last-minute info. Like you could still be sleeping, if you knew earlier.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Zayn saw Niall shrugging, “Technically yes, but Harry would have woken me up anyway. He goes for yoga almost every morning and he has a grace of a newborn fawn so he always knock something over and makes loads of noise when he’s getting ready.”

“That Harry sounds like a… something else, really,” Zayn laughed.

“He is. A mixture of a weird old man with a hipster, that’s like—I don’t know, he’s just one of a kind,” Niall shook his head with a smile.

Before any of them could add anything else, the back door swung open.

“Went to have a ciggy, did you—” Louis stopped, when he spotted Niall.

Louis glanced between him and Zayn a few times, an awful grin forming on his face. Zayn ignored it, pretending that he was completely focused and busy with making that coffee for Niall.

“Hello,” Louis said sweetly, coming closer to the counter. Zayn regretted he stood too far to trip up his friend. “Sorry, if I’m wrong but are you the famous Niall?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Zayn tried very hard to stop a groan that was threatening to escape his mouth. He needed a new friend, who wouldn’t do things like that. Daring to shoot a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw that Niall raised his eyebrows in a surprised gesture.

“I—,” he started, smoothing the piece of hair on his temple. “I am Niall. Why famous, though?”

“Oh, you see. My friend over there had been talking about you quite a lot.”

Niall’s eyes find Zayn’s but as soon as the Irishman looked at him, Zayn turned around, feeling his cheeks burn.

“Oh, he did?” Niall asked.

The smile was so clearly audible in his voice, that Zayn didn’t even have to look and check how the blonde’s face looked like.

“Yeah. He was a proper Mopey for a while, when he was worrying that you’ll see what a nerd he really is,” Louis explained politely.

This time the urge to voice his frustration was strong enough for Zayn to whine out loud.

“Could you maybe shut the fuck up, Louis?” Zayn glared at his friend. Who—unsurprisingly—looked like he was just having the time of his life.

“Don’t be mean to me, I don’t know what you mean.”

They both knew he did and Zayn was wondering what did he do to deserve all this. He was to scared to even glance in Niall’s direction, his face still burning. One thing was to be mopey because of the guy he was _possibly_ crushing on and the other was to _tell_ said guy he was being mopey.

“He is a nerd, he was babbling about the latest Spider-man film for almost an hour,” Niall grinned, his eyes sparkling when he looked at Zayn.

“It wasn’t an hour and you took part in in the conversation just as much as I did, you fuck!” Zayn tried to defend himself.

“Even if you’d want to, you wouldn’t find any porn under his bed, it’s just comic books there,” Louis added, completely ignoring Zayn’s words.

Folding his hands on his stomach Niall let out a loud, full-body laugh. Throwing his head back, Niall exposed his thick neck and Zayn’s eyes automatically focused on it. Although it was ridiculous, the thing Louis said wasn’t even that funny. Zayn should be mad or at least annoyed, since they were making fun of him, but watching Niall like that made him smile as well. To hide if from the boys—mostly from Louis—he turned around to finish Niall’s coffee.

“Maybe I’ll just leave you two, so you can make fun of me in peace?” Zayn asked bitterly, placing a cup on the counter in front of Niall.

“Actually…”

“Well…” Niall and Louis started at the same time.

Zayn would rather have them hating each other than them assembling against him. The Universe hated him. He was about to tell them to fuck off, when Niall stopped laughing, his eyes focusing back on Zayn.

“Well, good thing that I have a soft spot for such nerds,” he said, smiling at Zayn.

Blushing, Zayn placed a paper cup on the counter, sliding it towards Niall. He might or might not have doodled a little cartoon Niall in an astronaut’s helmet. Somewhere behind his back Louis let out a groan. He deserved it.

“Ugh, I was starting to like you and you just fucked it all up with that unnecessary, sappy comment. Nobody asked you for that, Neil.”

“Well, I’m sorry Lewis,” Niall answered and Zayn grinned because apparently Niall had remember when he told him how mad Louis gets every time someone mispronounces his name, “but I don’t need your permission to say what I want. Besides I came here for Zayn, not for you,” Niall said. He sent Zayn a quick glance and blushed, “I mean I’ve came for coffee, mostly.”

The more he stressed that, the bigger Zayn’s smile was and the more certain he was that maybe getting coffee wasn’t really Niall’s priority. A giggle escaped his mouth and Louis made another distraught noise.

“You two are gross and I won’t stand those blushes and other bullshit anymore,” Lou said, walking towards the back room. “Lemme know whenever you’re done!”

Zayn looked as his friend disappeared behind the door, making the gagging noises as he did that. A bit reluctantly—since now it was just the two of them—Zayn turned around to face Niall.

“Hi,” he said dumbly.

Maybe he would even be more embarrassed about that, if it wasn’t for the look on Niall’s face. He was smiling with just the one side of his mouth, in a way that made a little dimple appear in his cheek.

“Hi,” Niall answered, cocking his head to the side and leaning on the counter a bit.

At the moment Zayn’s brain was just an useless goo, making him unable to form a coherent sentence. He hated himself for behaving like this. He hated Niall for being so damn cute and hot at the same time.

“You really do have a thing for nerds?” was the thing that had left Zayn’s mouth after a long moment of silence.

Suppressing a heavy sigh, he smacked himself mentally. Keeping his mouth shut usually worked better for him.

“Well… Not all of them,” Niall answered with a chuckle. “Some of them are quite cute while getting passionate about Spider-man, though.”

Maybe he wasn’t that bad, Zayn thought. Or maybe Niall had a very high tolerance to bad and cumbersome flirting. Either way it was a win.

“That’s rich coming from someone who was drunkenly praising the Pathfinder,” Zayn grinned at the memory.

Niall laughed and pointed a finger at Zayn, “It is fucking aces and I’m not taking anything back!”

“Neither am I,” Zayn shrugged, before placing his elbows on the counter. It wasn’t the wisest idea, since it brought him closer to Niall and much further away from his ability to focus. “I guess we’re both just lame nerds.”

“That’s why we understand each other so perfectly.”

***

Getting his hopes up was a thing that Zayn tended to do every time in almost every case, even after reminding himself how badly it usually had turned out before. It was like a habit he couldn’t get rid of. He hoped that this time, with Niall, he at least had reason for it. That—more or less subtle—flirting before they had even met, Niall’s compliments and little things he did that always made Zayn blush. Their meeting at the pub that felt awfully like a date and the kiss that still made Zayn’s heart tremble, even though it was just a little peck. There were plenty of reasons that made Zayn think that _maybe_ Niall wasn’t strictly friendly and platonic.

Except he probably was.

Ironically, Zayn had realised that when Niall’s visit in the coffee shop became a regular thing. Every two days or so, he was coming before or after his class. At first Zayn was very happy about it. With time, though, he realised that it wasn’t really him that Niall came there for.

Surprisingly—or maybe not at all—Niall seemed to get on really well with Louis. They were always chatting about football or their classes or other stuff. Even when Zayn wasn’t around, they seemed to entertain each other really well. Maybe even better than when he was around.

It wasn’t out of jealousy, Zayn kept telling himself. Louis was likable and fun—at least when he wasn’t busy being a prick. In some ways, he and Niall were quite similar. So really, them liking each other wasn’t a surprise and Zayn was happy that they did. It had just helped him to realise that he was imagining things that weren’t there. Niall was just a very friendly and open person. The way he acted around Zayn was probably similar to how he behaved around Louis. Which either meant that Niall was hitting on Louis too or that he had been just friendly towards Zayn all along. The second option seemed more likely. Zayn tried not to be disappointed.

And he tried even more not to be disappointed or jealous when Louis and Niall started planning a night-out together. Though Zayn might had scrubbed at the poor coffee mug more angrily than he should.

Washing the dishes in the corner of the room, Zayn pretended that he wasn’t paying as much attention to Niall and Louis’ conversation as much as he did. They were talking about their plans for the weekend and Louis suggested that since they both planned on going out for drinks, they might as well do that together. It was fine, Zayn hoped they would have a great time. Niall would probably take Lou to that pub he had showed Zayn. Which was a great place, Niall’s favourite so it seemed.

Zayn wasn’t bitter at all.

It was just stupid of him to think that he was somehow special and now being petty when it turned out that he wasn’t. Pouring out his frustration on the mug he was washing for the past two minutes wasn’t the wisest thing either.

“Friday then?” Louis asked after he listed the places that were worthy visiting.

“Nah, not Friday. Zayn’s got some extra classes this Friday,” Niall answered, but Zayn was too busy drowning the innocent cup in the sink to even notice that his name was mentioned.

“He does?” Louis asked, turning around to stare at Zayn. “You do?”

After not receiving any answer, he smacked Zayn’s butt with a tea towel he was holding.

“What?” Zayn asked annoyed. He cut off the water and finally put the mug on the dish drainer.

“You have classes on Friday evening?” Louis asked, smacking him again.

“I do, my literature professor wants us to make up for some day we missed. Why?”

A small, triumphant noise escaped his mouth when he had finally catched the end of the tea towel, ripping it out of Louis’ hand so the latter would stop smacking him. The pout that appeared on his friend’s face made him look like an petulant child.

“You’re fucking up the weekend for us all!” Louis said and Niall just snorted at that.

“You’re not, Zayn,” Niall interjected. “Stop being so dramatic, Lewis.”

“What plans?” Zayn asked dumbly, not sure what his classes had to do with their night-out.

Louis raised his eyebrows at him, “We were literally talking about it for the past fifteen minutes mate, what the fuck.”

“I just—I thought that you—,” Zayn started before clearing his throat. “Nevermind. Um—Yeah, I’ll be knackered on Friday, you can go without me.”

“No, don’t worry, we’ll just reschedule for Saturday, yeah?” Niall said. He was looking at Zayn thoughtfully or maybe Zayn was just imagining it.

He sent Zayn a light smile, though, so Zayn gave him a smile in return and answered with a shrug, “It’s fine.”

 

As it turned out later, Louis and Niall had been a proper lads night-out. The four of them—Harry included—were supposed to go to a bar, have a laugh and get to know each other better. But the main goal was to get drinks. Zayn tried not to dwell too much on the fact that it wasn’t just him and Niall, like the last time. After all, Zayn didn’t have exclusivity on Niall or anything. And since they all were on strictly friendly relations, they should make sure they get along well.

Zayn decided that he would try his hardest not to be bitter or mopey. Considering how much of a fun Louis and Niall were, he hoped it would be quite an easy thing to do.

***

When Zayn reached the bar where they were supposed to meet, it was almost quarter past seven. Which meant that he was late, despite the fact that he had lived probably the closest. He just happened to get too caught up in the book he had been reading to realise that he had somewhere to go. But he had made it eventually, so that was a pro. Pushing the heavy door, Zayn walked inside the building.

Entering the familiar area, Zayn felt himself grinning. Even if he hadn’t known earlier, he would guessed now that Louis was the one to pick the place. He and Zayn were coming here quite a lot, but Louis seemed to have a specific liking to that bar. Or—to be more specific—to one of the bartenders here.

“So, Liam’s working tonight?” Zayn asked, finding the rest of the boys at the table to the left from the entrance.

Three pair of eyes turned to look at him, each with different expression. Louis were squinting at him and would probably stab him if he could. Opposite of him was Harry, with his wild, long locks and three top button of his pink polka-dot shirt undone. Curiosity was what could be found in his big eyes when he looked at Zayn. And finally, next to Harry was Niall, who was grinning at him happily, his eyes bright and crinkling by the force of his smile. It was hard to look away from that, Zayn felt like he was staring directly at the sun. For some reason it hurt a bit, but instead of burning his eyeballs out, it made Zayn feel all mushy inside.

“You’re late, fucker,” Louis said, completely ignoring Zayn’s words.

Rather unwillingly, Zayn tore his gaze away from Niall. Seeing Louis unamused expression was _almost_ worth it. Zayn opened his mouth to answer him, but before he could say anything, Harry cocked his head to the side and asked,

“Who’s Liam? Are we waiting for someone else?”

Zayn slid into the booth next to Louis, smiling at Harry.

“Nah, we’re not. Liam is just—,” Zayn started but Louis elbowed him in the ribs, making him stop.

After that short—and quite odd—interruption, the boys went back to the conversation they had had before Zayn got here. Feeling like he was missing the point a bit, Zayn decided it was better if he wouldn’t try to join the talk. Instead, he took a swig from his bottle.

Unfortunately, as the night went by, it didn’t get much better. Quite the opposite actually, Zayn’s anxiety seemed to only grew bigger. There was no good reason for that and yet it didn’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Talking to Louis was never a problem, which was quite obvious considering the fact that the two of them had been friends for almost all their lives. There was something about Niall that made it easier for Zayn to open up to him and Harry seemed like a nice person, too. However, having them all at the same time, buried deep in—a loud and quite rumbustious—conversation, wasn’t really encouraging Zayn to speak up. Instead, he shut down, mostly just nodding along or staring at the bottle in his hands. It seemed irrational, to be feeling like this around his friends. And the fact that he was aware of it but had no control over it made him feel ever worse. He hoped that at least his mood wasn’t killing the evening for the lads. Louis had known him well enough to recognise that he was in one of those moods and didn’t call Zayn on it. For which Zayn was thankful. Explaining to others that social gatherings of all sorts made him feel very uneasy sometimes was usually even more stressful.

“I’m going for another,” Zayn said to nobody in particular, shaking his empty bottle. “Someone wants anything?”

Niall and Louis shook their hands, pointing to their almost full pints. After a moment of hesitation Harry asked Zayn to buy him another one of those fancy drinks he had been drinking, since he already was halfway through his current one. Sending him a smile and a nod, Zayn walked slowly towards the bar. Maybe taking a break, even a short one would help him to relax a bit.

Reaching the counter, Zayn smiled at the bartender who was already looking at him with those warm eyes of his.

“Hi, mate,” Liam said with a smile. “You alright?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine, thanks,” Zayn answered automatically. “Can I have another IPA and also one of those fancy, colourful drinks? I think Harry had… a green one last time.”

Liam laughed at that, but there wasn’t anything mean in it, “Sure think, I’ll manage.”

Taking a bottle out of the fridge, Liam opened it for Zayn and poured it into a glass. Zayn was too busy playing with the empty napkin holder to catch a look that the bartender sent his way.

“You sure you’re OK?” Liam asked, seeming genuinely concerned.

“Yeah, it’s just—,” Zayn run a hand through his hair absentmindedly and accepted the beer Liam handed him with a smile. “Went out with friends but I seem to have one of this days when even them feel like too much.”

Already embarrassed about what he said, Zayn shrugged to somehow undermine his words. Liam only nodded, his friendly demanour not changing in the slightest.

“You can always chill here for a while and lay it off on my incompetency in preparing the drinks,” he said, grinning.

“You’re, like—,” Zayn chuckled, “the least incompetent person I know. Louis would never believe me.”

At just the mention of Zayn’s best friend, a weird spark appeared in Liam’s eyes. Zayn needed to bit at his lower lip to stop another chuckle.

“So, um—,” Liam stumbled, his cheeks tinting slightly pink. “Louis’ here too?”

“Yup. And I’m pretty sure he already have been here to buy drinks earlier?”

“Oh, yeah… You might be right, I mean it was a busy evening…,” Liam pretended that he was very busy with making the drink for Harry. “Oh OK, I remember. He was with some tall, long-haired fella? With a shirt unbuttoned straight to his belly?”

Sometimes Zayn found it really funny how both Liam and Louis sucked at hiding their enormous crush for each other. Since the very first time Zayn and Lou visited this place, Lou and Liam were all flirtsy with each other and refused to go anywhere else than this bar. Many times, he abandoning Zayn alone by the table and disappeared to woo Liam for a whole hour. And yet, none of them seemed to be willing to make a move.

“Yeah, that was probably Harry,” Zayn answered, chuckling at the way Liam glanced up at him and then at the drink he was making. He looked betrayed. “Harry’s a friend. A friend of a friend to be precise. Louis’ single. Just… In case you were wondering.”

After those words, Liam’s whole face turned bright red as he mumbled, “I wasn’t. But thanks.”

Placing the drink on the counter in front of Zayn, Liam cleared his throat. Not subtly at all, he asked Zayn if he saw the latest Thor movie. Zayn gladly picked up the topic. A while ago he and Liam had discovered that superheroes and comic books was something that they both had a liking for. Liam was more a DC guy, while Zayn prefered Marvel, but they still had plenty to talk about.

They were in the middle of discussing the upcoming _Infinity War_ , when a voice coming from behind Zayn startled him enough to stop halfway through the sentence.

“Oh, here you are, Zaynie,” Zayn didn’t have to turn around to recognise Niall’s voice. But he did anyway.

With cheeks a bit darker than usually, Niall was standing just behind the bar stool Zayn was sitting on. Despite his words being aimed at Zayn, Niall was glaring at Liam. Arching his brows up, Zayn felt confused, since his expression seemed rather unfriendly, which was a big contrast to the forever cheerful Niall he had gotten used to.

“Sorry, I got caught up in the talk,” Zayn explained, rubbing at his neck.

Only then, Niall tore his eyes from the bartender and focused on Zayn. His face softened a bit, his lips curling into a smile.

“‘S OK, just wondered if anything happened,” Niall said. “You alright?”

Zayn nodded, “Yeah. Was just catching up with Liam. About—you know—the nerdy stuff.”

“Oh, speaking of which, did you see the... new Avengers trailer?” Niall asked, flattening at the piece of hair at his temple. Zayn noticed he was doing that quite a lot, it was like a nervous twitch. “Looks aces. It’s gonna be out sometime next year, right?”

“April, yeah,” Zayn smiled.

Taking a step towards the counter, Niall stumbled over the bar stool next to Zayn. To steady himself, he placed his palm flat on Zayn’s back.

“Oops, sorry,” Niall said, though he didn’t take his hand away. Placing his empty bottle on the counter, he smiled at Liam. “Can I have a refill, mate?”

“Yeah, of course,” Liam quickly replaced the bottle with a new one. “And sorry for hogging your man like that.”

Feeling his cheeks burn, Zayn opened his mouth to protest, still extremely aware of Niall’s hand resting on his back.

“We’re not—”

“‘S OK, don’t worry about it,” Niall grinned before turning to Zayn. “Shall we go back to the table? Harry will get moody without alcohol.”

“Oh, sure,” Zayn answered, feeling a bit dizzy all of sudden.

He stood up from his stool, grabbing his and Harry’s drinks. Before they walked away, Zayn glared at Liam. The bartender had an overly sweet smile on his face and seemed quite pleased with himself. When did the kind and lovely Liam turned into such revengefull monster? Zayn was certain it was Louis’ fault. They were spending too much time together.

“Had fun abandoning us for Liam?” Louis asked as soon as he and Niall had reached their snug.

Zayn grinned, sliding into his previous place next to Louis, “Now you know how I feel everytime you leave me to flirt with him. And yeah, kinda. He was asking about you.”

“He did?” Louis tried to sound nonchalant, but his eyes immediately skipped to look towards the bar over Zayn’s shoulder.

“Yup. Poor thing was worried you’re dating Harry.”

“Who’s that Liam?” Harry asked again, looking between the two of them. “I think you’ve mentioned him before.”

Before Louis could react, Zayn explained happily, “He’s a bartender that Louis seem to have a big thing for.”

This time—a bit later, though—Louis’ elbow find its way to Zayn’s ribs as well. Zayn only laughed at that.

“Which is an obvious lie, you shouldn’t listen to him, my Harold. However, it’s funny that you’ve mentioned having a thing for someone, wanna share?”

This time Zayn was the one to try to shut Louis up and he did it by kicking him in the shin under the table. Seriously, both of them were technically adults, there should be some dignity and maturity in them. Zayn almost lost all hope that he would find any.

“Your glass is almost empty, you should go and ask Liam for a refill,” Zayn pointed out.

“Fuck off,” Louis mumbled, glaring at him before he got up and walked towards the bar.

Watching him with a smirk on his face, Zayn felt someone nudging his foot under the table. Turning back to the lads, he saw that Niall was watching him with the same soft expression he had earlier, by the bar. Niall’s foot made its way between Zayn’s feet as the Irishman hooked their ankles together. Trying not to blush or at least hide it as much as he could, Zayn looked down at his drink. It must had been the alcohol, he convinced himself.

And when Harry asked him about his major, Zayn realised that the knot in his stomach had disappeared, letting him chat with Harry easily.

The evening wasn’t as bad as it seemed at first, Zayn thought, sending another glance at Niall. He could deal with it.

***

From: **Niall**  
_hi zaynie have any plans for tnite ? x_  
Friday, 6:17PM

From: **Me**  
_not really? just planning to waste a whole night on the internet. why?_  
Friday, 6:20PM

From: **Niall**  
_wanna waste it together then ? hahah_ _  
_ Friday, 6:20PM

From: **Niall**  
_u up for a movie night ?_ _  
_ Friday, 6:20PM

From: **Me**  
_sure. where n when?_  
Friday, 6:22PM

From: **Niall**  
_mine ? at 7 if you manage to do your hair in such a short time ? hahaha_ _  
_ Friday, 6:22PM

From: **Me**  
_fuck off aha :P i’ll be there_ _  
_ Friday, 6:23PM

Putting his phone down, Zayn rolled out of his bed with a small groan. He was planning to lay in bed and watch movies anyway, so he could as well do that at Niall’s place. The only disadvantage of it was that he had to actually get dressed properly and walk out of his house. On the other hand, he was going to see Niall, which was always nice.

They haven’t really got the time to meet since their lads night. Both of them had quite a busy week at school and Niall wasn’t even at the cafe this week. So Zayn might or might not miss him a bit. But it was only because he got kind of used to his sunshine-y presence at the coffee shop. Not having him there just felt a bit… odd. They still texted, but no emoji could replace Niall’s laugh.

Zayn mentally smacked himself for being so sappy. The good part of a week of not seeing Niall was the fact that Zayn didn’t have more reasons to overthink their relation. It was better this way. Zayn had time to get used to the thought that he couldn’t hog Niall for himself and that there would be more lads’ meetings.

Not even ten minutes past seven, Zayn was knocking at the door to Niall and Harry’s flat. The door swung open almost immediately and Zayn was greeted by a blinding smile and an one-armed hug,

“Hey,” Zayn said, returning the smile and sliding past Niall, who gestured at him to come inside.

“Hey, Zaynie,” Niall answered, taking the jacket from Zayn and put it on top of an already full hanger. “I think I’m curious enough to face _Stranger Things_ , but not brave enough to do it by myself.”

A small chuckle escaped Zayn’s mouth at that, “So you need a whole squad for support? Where’s the rest, though?”

“Hm?” Niall seemed a bit distracted, running his hand through his hair, “The rest of what?”

“The lads?” Zayn explained.

“Oh. I haven’t invited them? I just texted you.” Niall shrugged, before sending Zayn a sheepish smile. “Is that OK?”

A bit caught off guard, Zayn nodded. Of course he didn’t have anything against it. He just assumed they wouldn’t be alone. That thought made him nervous all of sudden, he wasn’t really prepared for that.

“No, of course, it’s fine!” Zayn said eventually, hoping his nervousness was well hidden in his voice.

“Good,” Niall grinned, gesturing at Zayn to follow him. “You want anything to drink?” I can fix us some tea. And I should have a bottle of wine somewhere.”

“You need alcohol to cope with a TV series?” Zayn laughed.

Niall opened the door at the end of the short hall. He held it for Zayn as he answered with all seriousness, “Basically, yeah. It scares the shit outta me, I’ve told you.”

Entering Zayn’s bedroom, Zayn subtly looked around. The room was quite small, just like his own, but way tidier. A pull-out couch was in the corned by the widow a chest of drawers and a full bookshelf—filled half with books and papers and half with some boxes and a few candles. A small smile appeared on Zayn’s face when he’d spotted the paper cup with a little doddle he’d made for Niall the other day. There was no desk, just a small coffee table, an almost empty cup of tea and a laptop on it, situated in front of the couch. The room was quite dim, the only source of light was a small lamp on the wall behind the bed.

“Make yourself comfy, I’ll go get that wine, OK?”

Zayn let out a small hum of agreement. When Niall left the room, Zayn plonked down on the couch, taking a deep breath.

That was not what Zayn had expected. He expected the boys to be there. Or Harry at least. Louis had a not-a-date with Liam today, since he had finally found the guts to ask the bartender out. They went to a footie match two hours ago. As mates, _obviously_ , but Zayn was quite positive there was going to be some snogging afterwards. But Harry was Niall’s flatmate. He should be here. Zayn wasn’t expecting to be alone with Niall. And most definitely, he wasn’t expecting the dim lights and wine. But maybe he was thinking too much into it.

Luckily, Zayn didn’t have more time to dwell on that, because Niall came back to the room. With two whisky glasses in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other, he sent Zayn a sheepish grin.

“I’m not usually a wine guy so I have no idea where Harry keeps the glasses. Sorry, I hope those will work?” Niall asked, pointing at the whisky glasses.

“Sure,” Zayn laughed. “Been drinking wine from a thermos once, I think I’ll manage.

Niall gasped at that, “Wow, you’re such a rebel, Zaynie. Should’ve expected it from the tats,” Niall waggled his eyebrows, dropping on the couch next to Zayn.

Carefully, he filled two glasses and handed Zayn one of them, before leaning towards the laptop.

“You’ve seen just the first episode?” Zayn asked and after getting a confirmative hum, he added, “And that scared you so much?”

“Why? Is the second one worse?” Niall—quite rapidly—turned his head to look at Zayn, his eyes wide.

“No, I—,” Zayn chuckled. “I don’t really remember but I don’t think it was.”

“Good,” Niall faced the laptop again.

“We can always watch something else?” Zayn suggested, propping his elbow on the low backrest of the couch.

The only answer he had gotten was a shushing noise Niall made, as he pointed at the screen where the episode was already starting. Shaking his head at the blond, Zayn focused on the film.

Watching this with Niall was really… something. From what Niall had said earlier Zayn gathered that Niall was rather easily startled. But in fact, he was basically jumping in his seat at every louder noise. Even if it was the noise of Zayn clearing his throat. Sometimes he commented on one thing or the other, probably to break the tension, but mostly he was quiet. Well, except for the streams of curses he was letting out after every scary scene. At one point, roughly in the middle of the episode, Niall cuddled closer to Zayn, almost knocking out his glass in the process. Listening to the scared mumbling, Zayn tried really hard not to laugh. Instead, he wrapped his arm around Niall’s shoulders, letting him lean more comfortably. Zayn’s heart quickened its pace. It wasn’t because of the movie, though.

“What the fuck. What the fuck, Zayn,” Niall was mumbling into the Zayn’s shirt. “What was that fucking thing, it was fucking creepy as fuck.”

“You wanted to watch it,” Zayn pointed out with a laugh. It came out a bit shaky, since even through the fabric, he could feel Niall’s warm breath on his skin. “Wanna see another one?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Niall said, pressing his face further into Zayn’s chest. “I need a moment.”

Humming in agreement, Zayn looked down at Niall. From this close, his hair looked even softer than Zayn expected them to be. He felt the urge to run his fingers through it. His hand was already on Niall’s shoulder, he could just shift it a little bit. Maybe Niall wouldn’t even mind. If he did, Zayn could always said it was just a simple, comforting gesture. There wasn’t anything bad in this. And yet, Zayn felt his heart hammering in his chest, just at the thought of it. It was embarrassing, since Niall could probably feel it from where he was cuddled into his chest.

Moving his hand just a bit, Zayn placed it on the nape of Niall’s neck. The latter’s breath had hitched at that or maybe it was just Zayn’s imagination. His own breath was a bit shivery and he could hear his own pulse in his ears, so he was a bit hard to pick up other noises. The short, dark hair just above Niall’s neck felt very soft when Zayn brushed his fingers through it gently. Zayn felt a warm puff of breath on his chest when Niall sighed and let out a small noise that Zayn couldn’t really decipher.

After a few moments, just as Zayn’s heart rate was slowly getting back to normal, Niall shifted against him. The arm he had loosely wrapped across Zayn’s waist tightened its grip. Niall curled his fingers around his side. Slowly, his head moved up and he leaned away from Zayn. Just a bit so he could turn around and face Zayn. And when Zayn looked down at him, his heart stopped.

Niall’s eyes were a bit hooded, cheeks dark and visibly flustered, even in the dim light of the room. Zayn’s gaze darted towards Niall’s slightly parted lips. Unconsciously, he licked at his owns. The movement was tracked by Niall’s piercing eyes and Zayn was painfully aware of that. The atmosphere in the room felt heavy.

And Zayn felt like he was going to suffocate.

His breath quickened. Tightening the grip of his hand in Niall’s hair, he leaned forward to meet Niall in the middle.

At first it wasn’t perfect. Their noses bumped, lips didn’t fit together as they should. But then Niall made an impatient noise and shifted so he was sitting more upright. He rested his hand on the side of Zayn’s neck, rubbing his thumb against Zayn’s jawline. Tilting his head, Niall kissed him once more. Zayn felt himself melting into the sensation, into the feeling of Niall’s lips brushing against his. With the hand Zayn had tangled in Niall’s hair, he scratched lightly on the blond’s scalp, drawing another muffled noise from the back of Niall’s throat. Wanting to hear it again, Zayn caught Niall’s lower lip with his teeth, tugging lightly. Sounding needy, Niall tried to part Zayn’s lips with his tongue and Zayn gladly let him.

Zayn felt like he was floating. He pulled Niall even closer, holding him like he was his lifesaver, like it all would end if Zayn let go even for a moment. Sliding his hands down Niall’s sides, he wrapped one of his arms around Niall’s slim waist while his other palm stayed flat between the blond’s shoulder blades. Within seconds, Zayn had been pushed back so he was lying down on the couch, with Niall hovering over him, not breaking the kiss even for split second.

Zayn had no idea how much time had passed. His head was light, his mind dizzy. The warmth and the sweet heaviness of Niall’s body pressing down onto him made him shudder. The thought of kissing Niall, of holding him close as he was doing now, might had crossed Zayn’s mind earlier. But this? This was way better than any image he could had earlier. Probably because that one was real.

If it had depended of him, Zayn could spent the entire evening just kissing Niall. However, the latter had different plans.

There was a loud thud, coming from someplace in the flat. It made Niall jump and he rapidly snapped his head up to look towards the closed door. He almost fell off the bed in the process.

“What was that?” he blurted, his voice raspy and high, clearly panicked.

“I—,” Zayn croaked before clearing his throat, “I have no idea. Probably nothing.”

Niall wriggled around so he could straddle Zayn but only because he wanted to squeeze in between Zayn and the back of the couch. He hid his face in Zayn’s chest, his one eye still peaking at the door.

“What if it wasn’t nothing. Things don’t make such noises out of the blue, Zayn,” he mumbled. “Look. Normally, I’d just shrug it off, too. But after that fucking show I still might be a bit shaken, OK?”

Trying to pull his mind into focus, Zayn sighed heavily. To be honest, he was more endeared than annoyed, but he didn’t know if he should show it.

“Do you want me to check it?” Zayn asked.

“Yes please?” Niall looked up at him with big, wide eyes. After a few seconds, he furrowed his brows, “but wait. What if it’ll eat you and I’ll be left alone. I don’t wanna.”

“I’m really happy you’re worried about my wellbeing as well, thank you,” Zayn laughed, getting up. “Come with me, then.”

Niall let out a long, quiet whine, however he quickly caught up with Zayn who was already opening the door.

Feeling a tiny sting of nervousness—undoubtedly caused by Niall’s panic—Zayn walked out of the room and into the rather dark hall. Not seeing anything suspicious, he opened the bathroom door. After Niall—who was hovering behind him, his hand clutching the back of Zayn’s shirt—had made sure it was clear, they proceeded down the hall. Lurking into Harry’s bedroom, they eventually made it to the kitchen. Zayn reached to switch on the lights and he could feel Niall pressed himself into his back and grabbed at his arm when the bright light coloured the room.

Quite easily, both of them had spotted the cause of the noise. And it wasn’t anything supernatural—to Niall’s great surprise, probably.

There were a small pinboard laying facedown on the kitchen table. Zayn assumed it must had fell from the wall, in the process knocking out a plastic bowl with oranges that were now scattered across the floor. Lurking over Zayn’s shoulder, Niall let out a small “huh”. Letting go of his arm, Niall walked around Zayn towards the table to examine the crime scene.

“Fucking rubbish,” Niall mumbled, picking up the pinboard and putting it back down after just a second. “I told Harry that nail won’t hold it for long. But he never listens.”

With that, he turned around to face Zayn.

“I might have overreacted just the tiniest bit. Sorry ‘bout that,” Niall took a small step forward, shifting closer to Zayn. Despite his cheeks being bright red, he had a huge grin on his face. “I think that I, um… I’ve interrupted something back there.”

Feeling warm all over, Zayn lowered his head to hide his own blush and an idiotic smile that made its way on his face again. Feeling his heart racing, he glanced up at Niall, still not raising his head fully. The distance between them was growing smaller, with every step Niall took and Zayn was almost shaking with anticipation.

And that was when Niall almost stepped on one of the oranges, still lying on the floor. He lost his balance and gripped at Zayn’s extended arm to save himself from falling. What he didn’t managed to completely save was his dignity.

“Well, fuck,” he started to laugh, not letting go of Zayn’s arm completely, but sliding his hand down so he could take his hand. “I was trying to seductively approach you, but that fucking orange stood in my way. Whoever said that fruits are good for you were a liar.”

Couldn’t really help, Zayn started to laugh along, turning his palm so their fingers entwined. That evening had outgrew every single expectation Zayn had leaving his flat an hour ago.

“You were doing great, babe,” Zayn said, looking up at Niall’s face that was glowing brighter than the sun.

“Thank you, I tried. So…,” Niall’s laughter died a bit when he placed his free hand on Zayn’s shoulder. Slowly sliding it down his side, finally stopping at Zayn’s waist, Niall traced the movement with his eyes. “You didn’t—You don’t mind me… kissing you again?”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Zayn said quietly, not really trusting his voice. “Been wanting it for a while now, to be honest.”

Laughing quietly with relief, Niall beamed at Zayn and gently untangled their fingers so he could cup Zayn’s cheek, “Good to know it was mutual then,” he whispered, taking one more step forward. There was barely any place left between them. “So you’d be up for… going back what we I have interrupted?”

“I’d be totally up for it,” Zayn chuckled but his laugh was quickly muffled by Niall’s lips.

***

“You look like a moonstruck idiot. It’s disgusting.”

For whatever reason, Louis thought that he could let himself into Zayn’s flat whenever he wished. Sometimes Zayn really regretted giving his friend a spare key. Or actually—Zayn wasn’t if he even gave him the key or did Louis just took it.

Zayn was sitting by the small kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal and being an addressee of Louis’ disapproving glances. His friend dropped his jacket onto the chest of drawers in the hall and—not waiting for an invitation—walked into the kitchen. He snatched Zayn’s mug and took a sip sitting on the opposite side of the table.

“Fucking disgusting,” he grunted, looking down at the insides of the mug. “Why there’s sugar in there?”

“It’s nice to see you too, Lou,” Zayn said around the mouthful food.

Grin that appeared on Louis face was the only answer Zayn’d gotten.

“So,” Zayn waggled his eyebrows. “How was your totally-platonic-meet-up with Liam?”

“Liam’s a mess, he’s even worse than you and that says something,” Louis answered with a groan and Zayn let out an offended noise. “He was all nervous and weird. He looks like a fucking puppy. Ridiculous.”

Laughing, Zayn got up to dump the dishes in the sink and prepare himself another cuppa.

“I have that weird feeling that it wasn’t even slightly as bad and that there will be another date like that one.”

“I never said it wouldn’t be,” Lou shrugged. He tried to look unimpressed, but Zayn could see how soft his eyes were, when he talked about Liam.

It was cute, really. When they first met, Louis kept teasing Liam and making fun of him and it took a bit of convincing for Liam to believe that it was just how Louis was. Zayn had to explain to him at some point that it was Louis’ way of showing affection. He had gotten smacked in the head for daring to say that, but it was worth it. They were spending quite a lot of time at the bar where Liam worked and sometimes Louis were going there alone, to grab a beer or watch a game, he always said. But both Zayn and Louis knew what was the main reason for all those visits. They seemed to really bond with each other and in this case their opposite characters seemed to be the key.

“For the first time you haven’t denied it was a date,” Zayn pointed out with a grin.

“I think it stops being a friendly appointment, when he stuffs his tongue down your throat, Zayn,” Louis deadpanned. “Besides, since when you’re all observant and clever on a Saturday morning? It’s barely after noon, you should still be sleeping.”

Zayn flipped him the bird, before wandering off to his room and he didn’t even have to look around to know that Louis was following him.

“You’re up, you’re in a good mood. When I came in you were staring into your cereals with a dumbass smile,” Louis listed. “You’ve even made your bed! OK what is it? It’s getting scary, are you dying?”

“I have no idea what are you talking about,” Zayn said, placing his mug on the bedside table and then plonking down on the bed.

“No, but really. What happened? You never are so cheery and productive without a reason. You had a good wank? Or maybe it’s about Neil? It must be about Neil, he always pulls all the worst from you, you’re either gloomy or sappy. What did he do?”

Zayn opened his laptop, pretending he was very busy with it. He had to bite at the inside of his cheek to stop a smile. God, was he really that obvious?

“Not everything in my life revolves around Niall,” Zayn tried to argue. Louis face made it clear that he had lost this one already. “He invited me over to watch a movie yesterday.”

“Netflix and chill, huh?” Louis waggled his eyebrows. “Simple, but effective.”

“No, fuck off. Well… Not really. We were watching _Stranger Things_ and he got scared and kissed me.”

Furrowing his brows, Louis huffed out a laugh, “Neil has a very strange way of coping with fear. Don’t take him to a haunted house as a date, because he might start kissing strangers.”

Zayn laughed and shifted to let Louis lay beside him. Shaking his bed he explained, “It wasn’t like that, moron.”

“Well, that’s romantic as fuck, please don’t tell me more about it.” Louis mocked. “So are you finally boyfriends now? Can I stop being concerned about your love life?”

“You never had to be concerned about my love life, what the fuck,” Zayn chuckled and then added hesitantly, “And… we’re not? Or I don’t think we are, we haven’t talked about it.”

“If he listened to your ramblings about Marvel, still wanted to kiss your ugly mug and your horrible flirting skills didn’t make him kick you out of the house, I take that as a good sign.”

Zayn was willing to take it, too.

***

“Zayn, your boyfriend is here!”

A growl escaped Zayn’s mouth when he heard Louis’ yelling. Pushing at the back door and entering the main area, he answered,

“I’ve told you already that we’re n— Oh, hi Niall.”

Automatically, Zayn felt himself smile. In a way that made his eyes crinkle and his tongue press into his teeth. He could basically hear Lou rolling his eyes at him. That reaction to only seeing Niall in the same room, would probably be brought up on various occasions, just so Louis could make fun of him. But Zayn didn’t care. At least for now.

“Hello, Zaynie,” Niall beamed.

It was an early Wednesday afternoon and the coffee shop was almost empty, despite two ladies chatting in the corner. And they weren’t paying any attention to anything except themselves.

Zayn walked towards the counter to stand in front of Niall, who rested his elbows on the countertop so he could leaned closer.

“Hello,” Zayn said, before he realised he was just dumbly repeating himself. In a normal setting he wasn’t really good with words but somehow Niall was able to even lessen his ability to form a coherent sentence.

“Hi,” Niall laughed, running his fingers through his flat hair. “I really should keep going or I’ll be late but I just…”

“Did something happen?” Zayn asked, feeling a bit worried.

Niall shook his head, gnawing at his bottom lip for a second.

“No, it didn’t. Or well, kinda did, but it’s nothing bad, just—Anyway I wanted to ask you something.”

“OK, go ahead?” Zayn said, with a shrug but his statement seemed more like a question. Scratching at the back of his neck, he only pretended to be unbothered and chill, while he was rather bothered and not-chill.

Turning his gaze away from Zayn, Niall looked down at his hands. It didn’t really help for Zayn’s anxiety. Quickly enough, Niall’s eyes found Zayn’s own again. The Irishman looked the most shy Zayn had ever seen him.

“I was wondering…,” he started and then trailed off, playing with the hair on his temple. “I wondered if you’d want to go out with me? As for a date? A proper date? With me? Maybe?”

For a second or two, Zayn only stared at the other guy. It wasn’t really _that_ surprising, considering what happened the last time they had seen each other. But they didn’t even speak about it, so Zayn wasn’t sure where he was standing with Niall.

Looking at the blond’s blushed, yet hopeful face, he realised he should finally say something.

“A date?”

That wasn’t an agreement Zayn wanted to sound. His mouth had betrayed him, though, not cooperating with his mind. Because of that, he had to watch Niall’s smile fall a bit.

“Yeah, but we don’t have to? It’s just—I’ve just assumed that you might—But maybe you don’t—”

“No, I do!” Zayn interrupted, not really sure what he was confirming. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just surprised. I want to go for a date with you. I’d love that, actually.”

“You do?” Niall’s eyes shone and Zayn was positive he would agreed on anything Niall asked him so he could just see that expression on the blond’s face.

“That’s good. That’s great,” Niall said happily. “You’re fine with Saturday evening?”

“Sounds great,” Zayn smiled.

“OK, I’ll pick you up. I’ll find my way this time, pinky promise,” Niall looked as serious as his grin let him be. “I gotta go, but I’ll talk to you later, OK?”

Before Zayn could answer that, Niall leaned forward even more and pressed a short kiss to Zayn’s lips. Just after a second, he moved away to look into Zayn’s eyes. Cupping at his cheek, Niall looked like he was searching for something and whatever it was—he must had find it, because he closed the distance between then once more, this time the kiss lingering a bit longer.

“Bye, Zaynie. See you on Saturday,” Niall said, waving as he walked backwards towards the door.

Zayn waved back, his cheeks numb from all the smiling.

“Not boyfriends, huh?” Louis sighed heavily behind Zayn back, from where he was leaning against the back door.

This time, Zayn _really_ had a good feeling about it.


End file.
